Breaking Point
by CreepingMuse
Summary: Elena wants to learn to fight compulsion. Damon's all-too willing to help, but will either of them be able to deal with the consequences?
1. Mechanical

_Set sometime in Season 3 between "The Reckoning" and "Homecoming." This is my first time writing explicit scenes, so please be gentle. Contains adult content and mild non-con (or is it?). Thanks to the lovely and talented Jade2099 for encouraging me to take life by the balls and publish this damn thing. Hope you enjoy._

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><p>This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. Elena hovered on the doorstep of the boarding house. Again and again she reached for the doorknob, and each time she lost her nerve. She should walk away right now and forget this horribly stupid idea.<p>

Her phone buzzed and she fumbled for the thing. One new text message from Damon. "Is the front door broken?" Elena sighed. Now she had no choice. She had to go in. No way was she going to run and look chicken in front of Damon. Not to mention the relentless teasing and badgering she'd have to endure if she walked away now without explanation. She pushed the door open and walked into the dimly lit house.

A fire was burning in the hearth, as always, and Damon was sprawled on one of the couches, a glass of bourbon dangling from his fingers. "Oh, so the door _is _working," Damon said without turning toward her, his gaze focused on the flames. "I was starting to worry. Does make me wonder why you were standing on the porch for nine minutes without coming in, though. I think it's a new record."

Elena sat gingerly on the sofa, perching as far away from Damon as possible. "I was thinking," she said. It wasn't too late. She could manufacture some other excuse for being here. New information about the Originals, just checking in on him. Something else. Anything else. She didn't have to tell him what she really wanted.

"That's never a good thing." He finally turned to face her, frowning. "When you're thinking, you usually have some plan. And that usually ends badly. Tell me you don't have a plan."

"I wouldn't call it a plan, exactly. Just...a thought." Elena started to continue, but broke off, swallowing hard. This was an _awful _idea. There was no way this could end well.

Damon arched one brow, looking at her with sudden interest. "Your heart's pounding like a jackhammer. Must be a hell of a thought."

Elena wiped her damp palms on her skirt. "Well. Caroline was telling me about her dad, and how he can resist compulsion."

"Yeah. He gives a damn good compulsion impression, though. Had me fooled," Damon said, taking a gulp of bourbon. "Called my technique _lazy_. Hmph."

Elena couldn't help but smile at Damon's rankled pride. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Damon was her friend, after all. She could trust him with something like this...right? "So I was thinking...if Mr. Forbes can learn how to fight compulsion, why couldn't I?"

It wasn't often that Elena surprised Damon, but she'd certainly caught his attention now. His eyebrows flew up, lips parting. His eyes swept over her, first her neck, then to her wrist where his gaze settled on the homemade vervain bracelet. "You're wearing vervain. Are you drinking it?" he asked.

"No," she admitted.

"That's stupid as hell," Damon said. Quick as a snake, he reached out and tore the little braided bracelet from her arm, tossing the thing aside before his skin started to sizzle. Elena felt a mad sense of panic, felt nearly naked without the talisman. She wanted to scramble for the bracelet on her hands and knees, clutch it close and never let go. "If I wasn't your friendly neighborhood vampire, you'd be fucked right now," Damon said.

Elena gave herself a mental shake. It was fine. She knew she'd have to give up the vervain sooner or later in this little exercise. Better to get it out of the way now. "I stopped drinking it so we could practice, Damon. I mean, what would happen if a vampire grabbed me and kept me tied up for a few days until it left my system—like you did with Liz? Or with Bill?" She shook her head, fists clenching in determination. She was right about this. As much as this entire thing scared her, she knew it was the right thing to do. "This is the only way I can really be safe from it. I can learn to fight it."

"Practice," Damon said incredulously. "You want to 'practice' fighting compulsion. With me." He polished off his glass of bourbon, setting the empty highball glass on the coffee table. "I get why you aren't asking Stefan to help you—besides the fact that he's not exactly trustworthy right now, he sucks at compulsion." Elena had no idea what Stefan's prowess at compulsion was like, though she did know drinking animal blood had weakened his abilities. But the simple fact was, she couldn't trust Stefan right now. There was a time when she would have trusted him with her life and when the idea of turning to Damon for help would have been laughable, but everything was different now. "Why aren't you asking Caroline to help you? I bet that little control freak would just _love _to help," he said with an unpleasant little smirk.

"She isn't very strong with her compulsion. Not yet. But you are," Elena said.

"Not according to Bill Forbes. But flattery _will _get you everywhere." He fixed her with that otherworldly stare, the one that seemed to see right through her. Elena forced herself to sit still, not to squirm under that extraordinary gaze. More willpower. "There's another reason, though. Tell me," he said.

"With Caroline, it'd be too safe," she said reluctantly. "It's not that I think you'd hurt me—I_ know _you wouldn't hurt me," she amended. "But there has to be a risk. And I know you'll push me. Caroline won't." She trusted Damon. No doubt about that. If she didn't, she never would have come here today with this insane request. But there had to be real consequences to being compelled, or she'd never learn. Caroline's relative weakness in compulsion coupled with her gentleness would mean Elena wouldn't be pushed to the breaking point. And it was only when she had something to lose that she could ever learn to fight the mind control.

Damon considered her in silence, his face unreadable. Did he think she was a foolish girl, tampering with things she didn't understand? Did he think she was an idiot for _asking _to be compelled? Or was he simply considering what he would do to her once she was under his power? The thought sent a shiver up her spine.

"I'll give you one shot to walk away. Get up and leave right now, and we'll pretend this never happened." His voice was low and unusually serious, not a trace of mockery. "But if you stay, there's no going back. I won't stop. Not if you beg, not if you cry, not if you turn those ridiculous doe eyes on me. You'll belong to me until you can stop me. And that might take a very, very long time. You will do things that you don't like. You will do things that make you want to _scream. _Because you're right—that's the only way you'll learn, not by being compelled to stand on one leg or perform stupid human tricks. I won't go easy on you; no safe word. Do you understand what you're getting yourself into?" he asked, leaning close.

Did she understand what she was getting herself into? No. Not really. But she knew she had to try. "Do you really think you can help me learn to stop compulsion? Or are you just doing this to play with me?" she asked.

"Oh, I can help you. But this isn't something you're going to master today. Or tomorrow. Or next week. This is about the long haul. Can you handle that?" he asked, head turning slightly to the side She could smell his breath, sweet with bourbon.

"I need to do this. And I know I can trust you," she said, as much for her benefit as for his. Because she was terrified. Damon was utterly unpredictable. And if she let him unleash his true vampire nature, play havoc with her mind and take control of her body, she wasn't sure what would really happen. And while she was determined to fight it with everything she had, the thought made her heart race and heat flood through her body, a million tiny butterflies dancing through her veins.

Damon smiled. He stood, moving to the decanters, taking his time selecting one and pouring a generous drink. Elena forced herself to sit still, to breathe calmly and deeply. She focused on the familiar sounds: The gentle clink of crystal against crystal, the quiet splash of alcohol into the glass.

"Tell me what you know about compulsion," Damon said as he replaced the stopper.

"Most vampires can only compel humans, but Originals can compel vampires, too. Vervain can stop it." She frowned, deep in thought. "I think you have to have eye contact to make it work, right?"

"Yep. So one of the simplest ways to fight compulsion is to close your eyes. Always try that first. Of course, a vampire might just decide to rip your eyelids off," Damon said as he came to sit beside her on the couch, their knees not quite touching. "What else?"

"Compulsion can make people do anything, even kill themselves." The smell of charred flesh overwhelmed her as she remembered Isobel dropping her necklace and bursting into flames. No. She didn't want to think about that. She pushed the memory away. "Compulsion can be broken if the person who's compelled is turned, or if the vampire compelling them dies, even for a minute. Like what happened with Elijah," she said.

"And have _you _ever been compelled, Elena?" Damon asked.

"Just once. When Elijah kidnapped me in that creepy old house. He made me tell him where the moon stone was," she said, wrapping her arms around herself, shivering. "I think that was the only time, but I guess...I guess maybe I wouldn't know, right?"

"Maybe," Damon said, staring down into the depths of his drink. "Tell me what it felt like when Elijah compelled you."

"What's with all the questions? Surely you know what it's like," Elena said.

Damon looked up at her sharply. "I do. But this isn't about _me, _now is it? If we're gonna do this, we need to know what it's like for you. Every person is different. Some people are very easy to compel—like Caroline, for instance. God, I could have compelled that girl in my sleep." Not exactly reassuring. The bruises on Caroline's neck, the fear in her eyes... "And some people are much harder. Jeremy, for one. Tough nut to crack. As much as those memories of Vicki hurt him, he didn't want to let them go. So I'm trying to figure out where you fall."

"Oh. I never really thought about what it felt like, I guess. I was so scared, but when he looked at me, he was all I could see. And I knew if I just told him what he wanted to know, everything would be all right. I knew that telling him was wrong, that it was going to cause problems, but even still, I had to tell him. So everything would be all right," she said.

Damon leaned back, considering this. "Hm. Hm, hm, hm."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"The fact that you even realized that telling him was wrong is a good sign. Powerful vampire like Elijah, it's a miracle you didn't spill your whole life story the second he looked at you cock-eyed. Maybe you won't be totally hopeless after all," he said with grudging respect.

"Gee, thanks."

"Of course, that's the simplest level of compulsion; making someone tell you something they don't want to. From there it gets more complicated and harder to resist: Making someone do something against their will, making them see something that isn't there, making them feel something that isn't real," he said.

"Wait, you can do that? You could compel someone to fall in love or something?" Elena asked. What a horrifying thought.

"Theoretically. That's a hard one to sustain. The hardest thing of all is to fool someone's emotions. The body and brain are stupid, but the heart's a tricky thing. Mostly I've just used it to make someone not afraid. Comes in handy," he said.

"That's disgusting," Elena said.

"Whatever; it comes in handy when dinner won't stop screaming," Damon said. "All right. That's Compulsion 101. Now it's time to apply the theory."

Fear flooded through Elena, starting at the crown of her head and running down her spine like a hot liquid. "Wait, already? We didn't talk about any way to stop it. I-I don't know what I'm supposed to do," she protested.

"You're supposed to remember who you are and what you want, Elena," he said, pushing his drink away. "That's the only hope you've got."

It came without warning. One moment they were chatting like they had a thousand times before, and the next she was frozen in his gaze, those crystalline eyes holding her captive. His voice was like a sigh, soft and gentle. "Are you afraid?"

Such a reasonable question. Why would she even try to fight that? "I am, but not of you. I'm afraid of not being in control," she murmured. It felt like she was talking in her sleep, the words drawn out of her effortlessly.

"Smart girl. You always like to be in control, don't you? Always like to be the one holding the cards," Damon said.

"Of course, doesn't everyone?" she asked.

He laughed softly. "I suppose they do. But you aren't anymore, Elena. Not while you're with me." His eyes broke from her face for a moment and the fear came rushing back, sudden and visceral.

"God, this was a mistake. I should-" she staggered to her feet. No. She couldn't take this. He could force her to reveal every secret, everything she felt—about him, about Stefan. He could make her do _anything_, even love him. She stumbled for the door, but there he was in front of her, and all she could see were those eyes again.

"You asked for this, remember?" His fingers brushed her cheek. "I'm trying to help you. Whatever happens, I want you to remember that."

"I'll remember," she echoed. And she knew it was true, even outside of the warm, insulating comfort of his compulsion.

"Tell me how you feel when I touch you," Damon said, his hand trailing down her cheek, sweeping across her neck, only the lightest tips of his fingers caressing her skin.

"Warm. Safe," she said.

"Safe. That's a new one," Damon said with a soft laugh. "Is that all you feel? What about when I touch you here?" His hand moved lower, fingers hooking around the hem of her skirt, pushing it slowly upward.

Elena gave an indignant little squawk, reaching down to jerk his hand away. "Damon, you can't do that. Knock it off!"

"Stop. I can touch you wherever I want, Elena," he said, and Elena's hand fluttered away from his ineffectively. She strained to step back from him, to move away, to defend herself in some way from that hand that ran along her inner thigh as the skirt crept upward, but she couldn't. Couldn't budge a muscle. She felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment, and...something else. A sensation Elena hadn't felt in months, not since Stefan left. Well, a sensation she only felt when she awoke in the night, her thighs damp and her body aching for a lover who fled the moment she opened her eyes.

"Tell me what you feel when I do this," Damon ordered as his hand moved inexorably higher, coming to rest where her leg met her rear, cupping the flesh in his hand.

"I feel like I want you to _stop,_" Elena said, her voice quavering.

"Wrong. That's what you think. Tell me how your body feels," he said, eyes pressing in on her, squeezing the answer out of her. Suddenly she wasn't swaddled in the warmth, she didn't want to answer out of affection or devotion, she _had _ to answer so she could breathe, to relieve the brutal pressure of those eyes on her.

"Hot." She gulped in a breath of air as the horrible, relentless pressure eased just a bit. "Turned on."

"Mhm. That's what I thought." Long fingers stroked against the silken fabric of her panties, caressing her through the thin fabric. She shuddered under his touch. It had been _so _long... "Do you still want me to stop?" Damon whispered.

"No," she breathed. "I don't."

"I know." But suddenly his hand was withdrawing, his cool touch drawing away from her, and she looked up at him with eyes full of confusion. "You're going to go home and finish the job. You're going to lie on your bed with your cute little teddy bear, and you're going to stroke yourself and tease yourself and _fuck _yourself until you come. But all the while, you'll be imagining that it was me." He leaned forward, lips brushing her ear. "And when you come? You're going to scream my name." Damon pulled back, smirking at her, and she could feel the full weight of his words crashing down on her. "You won't tell anyone about what we're doing. And you'll come back at this time tomorrow and tell me all about it." He smirked. "Go. Have fun."

Elena left on mechanical legs, unable to stop to think until she was in her car on the way home. Then the trembling struck, her entire body convulsing in fear and desire. What had she done?


	2. Clockwork

_To say that the response to this story has been overwhelming would be an understatement. Holy shit, ya'all. Glad you're enjoying this. Don't get spoiled with the daily updates-they won't last. But genuinely, thank you. _

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><p>Thank God for small miracles—the house was empty. Ric was probably bellied up to the bar at the Grill, just like he'd done nearly every night since Jenna's death. He was trying to be strong for them, but Elena knew how hard he struggled every day just to get out of bed. And Jeremy...well, he was probably out with friends, and Elena was glad for that. Any stolen moment the boy got to spend acting like a real kid and not an empty husk of grief was to be celebrated. But for right now, she was mostly glad that she was alone.<p>

_You're going to go home and finish the job_, he'd said, so unbelievably smug at the idea of what he was forcing her to do. Well, she'd show him. So she wasn't strong enough yet to overthrow the compulsion, she could still find other ways to rebel. He hadn't set a time frame for his little order, now had he? Just that it was sometime before tomorrow. Elena walked to the living room. She had this. Everything was under control. She'd sit here, do some homework, get something to eat, and then wander upstairs on her own terms.

But she really should head upstairs for her Biology book. Couldn't do her homework without that. And wouldn't it be better to change clothes first, anyway? She smelled like Damon, smelled like leather and bourbon and woodsmoke and self-satisfaction. That arrogant jackass.

She climbed the stairs (purely because she _wanted _to, of course, not anything to do with Damon and his stupid compulsion), determined to stay as far away from the bed as she could. She dug through her bureau, determined to find the most unsexy outfit she owned. She came up with a pair of giant sweatpants and her old gym shirt from freshman PE. If anything could take her mind off what Damon had ordered her to do, it was memories of being an awkward fourteen-year-old in gym class. She lay the clothes on the edge of her bed and perched next to them so she could remove her shoes.

She tugged the boots off, tossing them carelessly aside. She looked longingly back at the bed. If only she could rest for just a little while. The thought of tackling all this homework—both the kind from school and the kind from her quasi-psychopathic vampire teacher—was exhausting. She lay back against the mound of pillows. She'd rest her eyes, then she'd get up and go about her evening.

Elena closed her eyes. Yes, this was just what she needed. Just a minute to stop and think. Think about how _mad _she was at Damon. She'd trusted him, and he'd shown that he was nothing more than a horny little teenager. She was pretty sure whatever Klaus was going to compel her to do, it wouldn't have anything to do with sex. This was just another way for Damon to get off at her expense.

But she couldn't help but think about what it had felt like when his hand began inching up her thigh, the skin rough and calloused against her own delicate flesh. How for once, he hadn't looked at her like she was some romantic dream, some untouchable Guinevere, but like she was a real woman who he _wanted. _How his fingers had been so sure but so gentle when they'd rubbed against her.

She let out a long, shuddering breath, one finger pulling aside her damp underwear to stroke the outside of her folds, her body melting into the bed with the slow, agonizing motion of her hand. Damon never rushed, not when it came to this, and nor would she...

Her eyes sprang open, only to find the round, shocked black eyes of her teddy bear staring back at her. "Dammit!" With her free hand, Elena grabbed the stuffed animal and shoved it under her pillow. There. It was on the bed; that would satisfy the fucking compulsion. But she wasn't going to let her childhood plaything watch this.

Fine. If this was how it was going to be, she'd just get it over with. She let her thumb brush against her clit, the little bundle sending lightning racing up her spine (and pretty much everywhere else, for that matter). She rubbed faster, letting her other hand move lower, a finger dipping deep inside her. She gritted her teeth against a gasp. She had to do this; she didn't have to enjoy it.

But her pace slowed, her fingers easing off that hooded bunch of nerves. _All the while, you'll be imagining it was me,_ Damon had said. And as much as she wanted this to be over, to lie back and think of England, that wasn't what Damon would do.

No, Damon would take his time, letting his electric eyes roam over her body while that tiny smirk played on his lips. He'd let his hands wander, his fingers tracing the line of her body, the swell of her breast, dipping his head to nip with blunted teeth at one peaked nipple. He'd let his hands run over her belly. He'd never be in a rush to get to the main event, but would instead press butterfly kisses against her navel, lower, eyes lifting to capture hers, full of certainty and lust and something deeper, something she couldn't name.

Then and only then would Damon push one finger into her wet, aching folds, another drawing lazy circles on that button. Slowly, torturously slowly, he'd move in and out, never letting her find a rhythm, never letting her expect his next move. She'd buck her hips against him, mewling, and he'd smile up at her. "Relax. I'll get you there," he'd say, his voice low, his eyes dark with desire. Then another finger would press inside of her and she'd arch towards those fingers, every inch of her body craving more as he moved faster and faster within her until finally her entire world narrowed to that spot between her legs, to the sensation of him inside her and on her until she couldn't bear it a moment longer. Every muscle in her body tightened, then released in one long exhalation, aftershocks of feeling ricocheting through her.

She had just enough presence of mind to bury her face in the pillow as she cried his name.

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><p>"Hel<em>lo<em>, Elena," Damon lilted as she entered the boarding house the next day. He was trying so hard to look cool and casual, lounging in one of the chairs in front of his customary fire with his customary glass and his customary smirk. But he'd been waiting for her, giddy as a school boy, and Elena knew it. "Sleep well?"

She'd spent the entire drive over debating what she'd do at this very moment. Would she lower her eyes demurely, cheeks burning red as he questioned her about her night? Or would she march over to him and smack him right in his leering mouth? In the end, she took the middle road. She didn't duck her head, didn't flinch away. She folded her arms across her chest, looked him straight in the eye, and spoke her deliberately chosen words. "I did what you compelled me to do." Just like that, she felt the force of his compulsion dissipate into the air. It had _worked_! She'd fulfilled the letter of the compulsion while thwarting its intent. She'd come here at the appointed time and told him all about it. That was all he'd told her to do. She couldn't keep a triumphant grin off her face.

If she'd expected Damon to be angry with her, she'd been mistaken. He blinked at her in surprise. "Nothing else you want to tell me?"

"Oh," she murmured, letting her eyes grow wide as if she were still in the compulsion trance. "Oh, there is. Go to hell, Damon."

He laughed, surprising her a second time. His laughter was full and hearty and almost...proud? "Well played, Gilbert. Smarts like that deserve a drink," he said, still chuckling as he strolled to the bar.

Now the flush rose to her cheeks. "You don't just get to stand there and laugh at me, you pervert."

He turned his head to the side, considering the insult as he splashed bourbon into two glasses. He shrugged. "I've been called worse." He added water to one glass, offering it to her. "I'm just saying, a job well done merits a drink."

Elena looked at the glass suspiciously. "Is this a trap?"

Damon rolled his eyes extravagantly and took a swallow from the proffered glass. "Paranoid much?" he asked, but he couldn't keep the smile off his face. She accepted the glass, and he clinked his highball against hers. He led the way to the seating area and settled back into his chair, leaving her to claim a seat on the couch. "Now that we've got the compulsion out of the way, tell me what happened."

"I'm not giving you a play-by-play, Damon," she protested.

"Elena. I assure you, my interest is purely scientific," he said, all wide-eyed innocence.

"Bull," Elena said flatly.

"All right. Maybe not _purely_ scientific. But what I said yesterday holds true—I gotta know what's going on inside that head of yours. I could compel it out of you, but I'd rather you just told me the truth right now," he said. "And you can tell me as much or as little of the gory details as you want." His lips tugged into a smile. "I'd prefer 'as much,' but your call."

"Pretty proud of your little stunt, huh? Think you're so tough, two-hundred-year-old vampire pushing around a teenager?" she asked. How could he treat this like it was all one big joke? This was her life, not some game. What he'd done, what he'd made her do and feel, meant something.

"You had your chance to go to Caroline," Damon said, the humor draining from his face. "You chose me. So you either play by my rules or find another vampire who'll worry more about your feelings than keeping you alive. Now tell me what happened." His voice was firm and more than a little annoyed, but he wasn't compelling her. She still had a choice.

And as pissed as she was with him, he was right. She'd walked into this house because she knew that he would get the job done, that he'd produce the urgency she needed to overcome compulsion once and for all. If escaping Damon's dirty little mind was the impetus she needed, then she could deal with it. For a while.

Elena took a bracing gulp from her glass, tasting his lips on the rim, tasting copper. She pushed the glass away. "I went home. I was determined that if I could stay away from the bed, I could...avoid doing the rest of it. Or at least put it off for a while. But then I was going upstairs anyway, like it was my idea."

Damon nodded, but didn't offer any commentary.

"So I went upstairs, thinking I'd grab my books, do some homework, change my clothes. I even had the clothes all laid out, and then I made the mistake of sitting on the bed. Again, like it was all my idea." Her hands clenched at her side. "I wasn't in control enough to even know what I was doing. I didn't even realize I was...doing the other part of the compulsion until I made a noise. And then I saw Mr. Snuggles staring at me-"

"Wait. Wait, Mr. Snuggles?" Damon coughed, choking on a mouthful of bourbon.

"_Yes, _Mr. Snuggles. My bear. I named him when I was three, give me a break," Elena said. "So I stuffed him under the pillow and...finished it." She met his gaze evenly, refusing to look away. She had nothing to be ashamed of. Even if he hadn't compelled her, there was nothing shameful about what she'd done. The only thing to be embarrassed about was who exactly she'd pictured throughout the entire process.

"Mr. Snuggles," Damon chortled. It took him a moment, but he regained his composure. "You finished all of it?"

"Yeah. Thank God no one was home; I would have died if anyone had heard me. At least the pillow made it so the neighbors didn't hear," Elena said.

"The pillow? You...screamed into a pillow?" Damon asked, one eyebrow raising quizzically.

"I couldn't have anyone hearing," Elena said.

Damon watched her in silence for a long moment. "So let me get this straight: You held off long enough to pick out clothes and take your shoes off, you hid the bear I specifically told you to have on the bed, and you muffled your scream with a pillow?"

"Um. Yeah?" Elena blinked at him in confusion. Really, out of this whole bizarre experience, those were the details that interested him?

"Huh." He swirled his glass, the amber liquid glinting weirdly in the firelight.

"What? What does that mean?"

"Well, either you're a lot smarter than I gave you credit for, or you have incredibly shitty orgasms. Maybe both," he said. Elena grabbed a couch cushion and tossed it at his head, but it whizzed harmlessly by. "C'mon, you had enough rational thought in your head to bite the pillow when imaginary-me was rocking your world? Maybe it was your imagination that was the problem—if it'd been the real thing, you _never_ would have." Another pillow narrowly missed his head, but he just grinned.

"Are you done?" she asked.

"If you insist. But in all seriousness, you figured that out faster than I would have thought. Depending on how the compulsion is used and worded, you can sometimes squirm your way out on technicalities. Like you did with telling me about what happened, or making sure the bear was on your bed but not visible. Nice to know there's a brain under all that shiny hair."

Elena looked around. Out of couch cushions. Damn. "You couldn't have just _told _me that yesterday?" she said, exasperated.

"That wouldn't have been any fun. Plus, you needed to learn it for yourself. Now that you know, you'll be able to rules-lawyer your way out of other compulsions. Gold star," he said, draining his glass and reaching for her abandoned one. He leaned back in his chair, and suddenly she was suspended in his gaze again. It was uncanny—he didn't move a muscle, didn't even blink. But one moment he was Damon, teasing her and laughing and all (mostly) harmless fun, and the next he was some terrifying creature straight out of a nightmare, his eyes pinning her down like a fly. "Tell me the truth, Elena. Was that the first time you've touched yourself while you thought about me?"

Okay. Think. She could think her way out of this, just like she had before. There had to be a way to turn it around. What was the compulsion? What did she want to do more than anything? Tell the truth. Okay. She just had to not lie. She could do that. "Damon, this isn't funny. Please stop," Elena said.

"Wrong answer. Try again," he said, and Elena felt her chest constrict, like a hand was squeezing her heart. And she knew that if she just told the truth, just answered his question, it would all stop and Damon would go back to being her laughing friend, not this tormenting monster. "No," she said simply, and the pressure vanished.

But the laughter didn't return to Damon's eyes. There was something almost sad in the way he held her gaze, his mouth quirking into a humorless half-smile. "Yeah. Thought so."

"What, because no woman can resist the Damon Salvatore charm? Or do you just compel your way into every woman's pants?" Elena asked bitterly.

He leaned forward. "No. Because you don't think I _heard _you all those nights after my brother rolled over? You don't think I couldn't tell that that breathy little cry you let out when he'd shot his wad was a fake? You don't think I didn't listen when you let your hands do the walking night after night?" For once, there was no leer in his voice. He was reciting cold, hard facts. And he was right.

Stefan had tried, really he had. He thought he was doing the right thing, but after a few nights together with his too-gentle touch and his too-quick endings, she'd wound up taking care of herself. And if on a few occasions one Salvatore brother had swapped for the other in her mind's eye, well, after Stefan left her cold and aching one too many times, maybe that was only to be expected.

"Yeah. Maybe I did. And how many times was it me you saw when it was just you and _your_ hand, Damon? Not Katherine—but me?" she asked. The words were out of her mouth before she could really understand why she'd asked it.

Damon just smiled and shook his head. "That's enough for today, Elena."

"What, so you just get to say 'no' like a coward but I have no choice but to answer you?" Elena said.

"Do you really want me to answer your question?" he asked. Her silence was her answer. "Come back tomorrow."

"You didn't compel me. How do you know I'll come back?"

"Neither one of us can stay away. No matter how we hurt each other, we always come back, don't we?" He reached for her hand, but thought better of it. "Goodnight, Elena."

She left. And the next day, she returned, like clockwork.


	3. Robotic

Damon held the knife up to the light, his brow furrowed as he ran the soft cloth along the wicked, curved blade. Elena had seen a knife like that before, in a pile of Matt's hunting gear. It was a brutal tool, designed to cleave skin from flesh and muscle from bone. "What is that?" she asked uneasily.

"It's a big fucking knife, Elena, what does it look like?" Damon replied, exhaling on the glittering blade and buffing it with that cloth again.

"That's...pretty much what it looks like. Please tell me it has nothing to do with me and you just happened to be cleaning your giant knife collection when I came by," Elena said, trying hard not to stare at the weapon. She might be able to squirm her way out of some compulsions, but she didn't have a prayer of fighting back against a clear, simple instruction. "Stab yourself," for instance.

"Oh, it has everything to do with you," Damon said. "But probably not how you think." Finally satisfied with the cleanliness of the blade, he set it on a white towel. He was strangely subdued, his mouth set into a grim line. He hadn't even made any dirty jokes yet, which made Elena _very _nervous. Something was up.

"So you're not going to make me...?"

"Slice yourself to ribbons? You think I could sit here and watch you do that?" He shook his head. "Not happening. Plus, it wouldn't really accomplish anything. There are much more fun ways to watch you try to preserve your own dignity," he said, a smirk ghosting his lips. He flung one hand out, inviting her to sit, and she did, though the reflection of the dancing flames from the stainless steel of the knife kept distracting her.

Damon sat opposite her, rubbing his hands together. "So. You've learned the tricks of cheating compulsion—vervain, avoiding eye contact, walking on a technicality. And that's really about it. The rest of what you need to learn is about willpower, pure and simple."

"Nothing about any of this is either pure _or _simple," Elena protested. "If I had any willpower at all, I wouldn't be sitting here." No, if she was really strong, she would have walked out of here after yesterday's debacle and never laid eyes on Damon Salvatore again. She certainly wouldn't have dreamed about him last night.

_Stefan was asleep, his back still and silent. Again. She was glad one of them had found a little relief. She pillowed her head with one arm, the other hand sliding beneath the sheets. She was halfway there already; it would only take a little longer and then she'd be able to sleep, too. She sighed._

"_Need help?" a voice whispered. Her eyes flew open wide as one hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her surprised squeak. "Shh," Damon breathed, beautiful and glowing in the darkness, though his eyes danced impishly. Slowly, he drew his hand away from her mouth, fingertips catching on her bottom lip. _

"_Damon, we can't. Not with-"_

"_Sure we can. He sleeps like the dead. Besides, he deserves it, selfish bastard. " He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring as he caught the scent of her, wet and ready. "It'll only take a minute," he grinned, and then he disappeared under the covers._

"_Damon!" she hissed, casting worried eyes at Stefan's slumbering back. But then all thoughts of the sleeping Salvatore fled as Damon nudged her legs open, his cool breath tickling her thigh._

_She choked on a gasp as his wet, probing tongue slid along her damp slit, teasing her swollen lips open. His fingers fluttered along her body, now making the soft flesh of her thighs leap under his touch, now caressing her stomach, tracing up her sides. His lips roamed upward, kissing and licking a tantalizing line until they latched onto her clit, sucking hard on the tender nub. At the same time, he thrust two fingers deep inside her with no warning. _

_Her back bowed up to meet his fingers, his lips, him. His fingers pumped a punishing rhythm, his mouth tugged relentlessly on that bundle, and Elena bit her arm to stifle her cries as her body shuddered in release, nameless colors dancing inside her eyelids as the entire world seemed to fold in on itself. _

_When she could finally see again, Damon poked his head up from under the rumpled sheets, his hair damp with her sweat and artfully mussed. He licked his lips, for all the world the cat who got the cream. "Sweet dreams." _

"Well, you don't have much willpower when it comes to protecting _yourself, _that's for damn sure," Damon was saying. Elena shook herself. Focus. Big fucking knife here. That was probably going to be important. She couldn't be distracted by stupid dreams that didn't mean anything anyway. "But you always have plenty of moxie when it comes to protecting people you care about."

Dread stole over her. "Damon, if you've done something-"

"Unclench, Elena. I haven't harmed a single sainted hair on any of your friend's heads," he said. He stood, arms crossing as he grabbed the hem of his black t-shirt and pulled the garment over his head. He took the time to fold the shirt, laying it over the back of the couch with precise movements. "It's not perfect, but we'll have to use me instead of a loved one," he said with a tight smile.

Elena's eyes darted uncomprehendingly from his bare chest to the knife and back again. He wouldn't. He wasn't really going to do this. Surely even Damon wasn't this crazy. "This is too far, Damon. We can't do this," she said.

"You don't get a vote," Damon said.

No. Let him play with her, make her his toy; let him make her bleed, to take the pain on herself. But she wouldn't—she _couldn't—_do this. Not to him. Elena squeezed her eyes closed, burying her face in her hands.

"Elena, look at me," Damon said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "We can talk about this, just look at me."

He sounded so sincere, so pleading; he nearly fooled her. But not quite. "I won't. I won't do it."

She heard a low growl and then her hands were forcibly yanked away from her eyes and she was lost. It had taken only a single moment for him to catch her, and now she couldn't look away.

"What did I ask you to remember the first night we started?" Damon asked, still gripping her wrists.

"To remember that you were trying to help me," Elena said.

"Yes. And that's what I'm doing. Because I know you're strong enough to do this, and I know you're strong enough to win." He inclined his head toward the blade. "Now take the knife and cut me."

"Damon, stop this! You have to stop this. I _can't _do this," Elena cried, but her body was making it pretty clear that she could and she would. Her arm moved robotically, fingers wrapping around the leather grip of the knife. "I'm calling it off, we're done. I was crazy to think this would ever help." Her sneaker-clad toes dragged against the carpet, but led her inexorably to Damon.

"As I recall, I _tried _to tell you that, but too late for regrets now. So how about you stop being pissed at me and start thinking about how you're going to stop it?" Damon suggested. How could he stand there so calmly? All that was missing were some screeching violins to make this positively Hitchockian, and he was playing "I told you so"?

Her feet drew to a halt in front of him. Before she had another second to process, to try to think her way out of this, she'd swiped out with the blade, leaving a shallow crimson gash across Damon's upper chest. He winced; might have made some noise of pain, but Elena couldn't hear it over her own horrified scream. "Damon, I'm _begging _you. I don't know how to stop this—I could really hurt you."

"Doubt it—you stab like a girl. Man, hope Ric's a better history teacher than he is a fight instructor," he said, lowering his head to look at the cut. A thin but steady rivulet of blood escaped the wound. "Shit, let's do this over the hardwood; don't want to stain the rug." He moved off the fine old Persian rug, and Elena's arm swung out again, slashing another glancing wound against his side. She heard his grunt of pain this time.

"Well excuse me for not wanting to hurt you!" she gritted as she watched more blood drip into the waistband of his pants. She couldn't stop it, could only watch as her body lashed out at him with brutal little licks that left trails of blood. She was a passenger in her own body.

"Is being mad productive right now? Or is that just feeding into what you're _supposed _to be trying to fight?" Damon asked.

Damn. Shit. Fuck. He was right. If he wasn't going to stop this, then she would have to. She would have to figure something out so this nightmare could end—and _wanting _to stab him wasn't helping. Okay. She drew in one, deep shuddering breath, trying to steady herself.

"Good. Breathe. Again," Damon said. Elena complied, letting her lungs expand and contract in time with his words. "And again. Your heart's racing; you need to slow it down. You're angry and afraid, and that's making it harder for you to fight."

Breathe. In and out. In and out. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the simple rhythm of her breath, on trying to tame her out-of-control heartbeat, but immediately lost her cool when she felt her grip shift on the knife.

"Ignore it. Ignore everything. It's secondary right now. Get yourself under control, then you can focus on—_ow!-_that," he said, finishing through gritted teeth as Elena felt the knife bite into his flesh again.

"Sorry!" she said, squeezing her eyes more tightly closed, trying to do as he said. Block it out. It was out of her control for right now, but it wouldn't always be.

"You got me good that time," he muttered. "But don't worry about it; it's already closed. Just stay with me, Elena. Keep breathing. Relax. Relax the muscles in your jaw, relax your grip on the knife, relax all that tension you're carrying in your chest."

"Easier said than done." But she eased her locked jaw, loosened her grip on the hilt of the blade, kept breathing slowly and deeply.

"Good. You're doing fine," Damon said. Another strangled cry as she struck him again.

"That's not fine, Damon. Nothing is fine," Elena said, panic coiling in the pit of her stomach like a venomous snake. Wrong, everything about this was wrong. She wasn't supposed to be hurting him; not when he'd spent the past months protecting her, guarding her against every harm—from things that went _bump _in the night and her own frenzied, tortured nightmares. How could she repay his kindness like this? If it had been him, he'd slit his own throat before hurting her. Why was she so weak?

Her eyes flew open as she felt his hands on her face. He was staring down at her with such...with such tenderness_, _and she couldn't bear it right now. Not when every moment could bring another cry of pain and rush of blood. "Get away from me," she said, stumbling back a step. "It's not safe—_I'm _not safe."

His lips curved up, but that look couldn't possibly be called a smile. "So now you know how it feels," he said. He bridged the gap between them again, his hands pressing against her shoulders, thumbs stroking the side of her neck. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. And we're going to get through this. Just keep breathing."

She wanted to believe him, to accept that everything would be all right. Wanted to believe him in the very depths of her soul. But he was wrong. It was only a tiny movement, only a little push that caused him to double over with a shout, the knife quivering in his belly.

Something wrenched within her with a nearly physical pain, and then she was running, fleeing away from the boarding house into the woods, branches whipping against her face, tearing at her hoodie, the cold night air stealing the breath from her lungs. And then she fell to the ground, twigs and stones digging into her hands and knees as she retched again and again until her stomach was empty and her mind was blank.

Damon knelt beside her, but she couldn't look at him. He didn't speak. He was disappointed in her for being weak and being pathetic and not caring about him enough to stop. She retched again, pale bile spilling onto the hard earth.

She rocked back on her heels, wiping her mouth with the back of one grubby hand. How could she look at him, after what she'd done? She'd gutted him like a fish, like Katherine had stabbed John. It didn't matter that she was compelled—she should have been stronger.

"That was pretty impressive," Damon said.

"What are you talking about?" she asked. She was heartsick and tired and her head hurt and her throat burned and the last thing she wanted to do was play twenty questions with Damon and his ambiguous comments.

"You did it. You broke it," he said.

"The hell I did. I _stabbed _you," Elena said. "I went above and beyond the damn compulsion—you only said 'cut.' I shanked you."

"No, you knifed me. A shank is like a prison thing. But that's not important. Elena," he said, chucking her chin up gently, forcing her to meet his gaze. "How do you think you're sitting here right now? No knife in sight, right?"

Elena blinked. He was right. And they'd been sitting next to each other for long minutes now, and nothing. No mechanical limbs, no more slashing and cutting and maiming. "But how is that possible?"

Damon shrugged. "Don't ask me to explain it; it was weird. I could feel the compulsion break, like...like a string snapping. Wasn't like that with Bill Forbes, I can tell you that."

"Are you okay? You're all right, aren't you? Everything's healed?" she asked, fighting a rush of anxiety. She knew he was a vampire and all, and she hadn't stabbed him with _wood, _but even still, she couldn't forget how it had felt when the knife rammed home, buried deep in his flesh.

"Good as new. Well, little sore. A blood bag or two and I'll be back to normal. Speaking of, let's get the fuck out of the creepy woods, shall we?" He rose, offering her a hand up.

The pair walked the short distance to the house in silence, both wrapped up in their own thoughts. She'd done it. When pushed to the very furthest limit, she'd been able to break the compulsion. But what if she'd been compelled to hurt Jeremy instead of Damon? He'd be dead with a wound like that. Or what if the compulsion had involved a stake to the heart? No, it wasn't good enough to break the compulsion after the deed was done. That was just adding insult to injury.

Besides the fact that her "success" had been too little too late, there had been other effects, too. Her legs wobbled uncertainly under her, and her head pounded. She was weak and exhausted. And that couldn't happen, either. She had to be able to pull it off seamlessly, like Bill had.

But this was a start. It wasn't the breakthrough she was hoping for, but it was a beginning. "Damon?"

"Yeah?" He held the door open for her, but she shook her head, lingering on the doorstep. The door swung closed. For the first time, Elena got a good look at Damon, at the splotches of blood splashed across his chest. She reached out toward the biggest smear, a dark stain just below his ribcage, but checked her hand, letting it fall back to her side.

"I'm sorry," she said.

A slow smile spread across his face. "I'm not. A flesh wound was worth it. It would've been nice if you could have broken it _before _you punctured my liver, but better late than never." He bowed his head, lips brushing against her forehead in a feathery kiss. "I'm proud of you." Elena was struck with the strangest feeling of deja vu. But the moment was gone, and Damon was opening the door again.

"I need to go—if you're sure you're okay," Elena said.

"Oh, please. You're the one who was puking her guts out a minute ago—and you're the one who lacks a freakish healing factor. You okay?"

"Yeah. Just tired. But...I'll see you tomorrow?" she asked.

"Same time, same place."


	4. Puppet

Coffee trickled through the machine, filling the pot drop by drop. It needed to hurry the hell up. "Glad to see you're making yourself at home," Damon said, strolling into the kitchen.

Elena continued to stare at the coffee pot, as if her rapt attention would deliver the life-giving caffeine faster. "Sorry, coffee's necessary unless you're going to compel me to fall asleep," she said. Training with Ric had started at five in the morning, followed by school all day, a math review session, a few stolen moments with Caroline and Bonnie, and now compulsion class. After, she'd still have to do homework before falling into bed and repeating the whole cycle again. And that was all assuming Klaus or Stefan or the ghosts of dead vampires didn't start raising hell. Just thinking about it made Elena want to sleep for a week.

The coffee pot was full enough; she poured a cup while more droplets of coffee hissed onto the hot plate. She was hunting for the nasty creamer powder Stefan had kept in the house for her when Damon plucked the cup from her fingers. "Damon. Give me the fucking coffee," Elena said.

Damon gasped in mock horror. "Did Elena Gilbert just say 'fuck'_?_ How scandalous. I like it."

It wasn't like her to swear quite so vehemently. Think the words? Abso-fucking-lutely. But mostly, she left the profanity to professionals like Damon. She rubbed her eyes. "I'm _tired. _Just let me chug a couple cups of coffee and I'll be fine and we can get started.

"We could do that. Or we could do it the easy way," Damon said, taking a sip from the mug. He grimaced, reaching into a cabinet and producing a bottle of whiskey. He added a glug and took another swig, sighing in satisfaction this time.

"Great. Now I can't drink it or I _will _fall asleep." She reached for her purse. "Whatever, it's fine. I'll just come back tomorrow." She couldn't deal with this nonsense when she was running on empty.

"Don't throw a hissy fit. For once, compulsion can work to your advantage," Damon said, blowing on his steaming mug.

A beat passed. Then two. "Wanna tell me how, or is it a secret?" Elena asked.

"Easy. I can fool you into thinking you're not tired," Damon said. "I can make you think you just had the best night's sleep of your life, shotgunned a Red Bull, and are ready to run the Boston Marathon."

"That sounds like a really terrible idea." The coffee had finished brewing. There was at least enough for half a cup in there. Elena reached for a clean mug, but Damon seized her hand.

"Let's try it my way," Damon said. "If you don't feel one hundred percent better, the coffee'll still be there. I'll even tell you where we hide the sugar," he cajoled.

Elena wanted to argue, but the fact was, she was about to drop. It was either caffeine or compulsion, and since compulsion was going to be on the menu anyway...well, what was the worst that could happen? "This isn't some kind of trick? Because if you're going to do something horrible, I'd really rather you just did it instead of making it sound like it's for my benefit."

The look of hurt was fleeting, but unmistakable. "I'm not doing any of this to _trick _you."

"I know, I know. You're trying to help. That was a low blow," Elena said. "Sorry, I'm not myself today. I'm so busy being grouchy I forgot to ask—how are you feeling? You back to normal?" Every time she closed her eyes now, she saw Damon hunched over the knife lodged deep in his gut. The image made her want to crawl out of her own skin, but she was glad for it. It helped her focus on why she was doing this, why she was willing to risk everything to break compulsion. Because Damon was a fluffy bunny compared to what Klaus or Elijah or even Katherine could and would compel her to do if given half a chance.

"I'm a vampire, Elena; I was fine ten minutes after you left," he said, gently taking her elbow and steering her into the living room. Elena let herself be led, let him push her down onto the couch. "No tricks, I promise. This isn't part of the lesson—this is just for you. If you want it. I won't do it if you don't want me to." Strong fingers squeezed her shoulder. "I worry about you."

"I think a little lost sleep is the _least _of our worries, but I appreciate the concern," she said with a wane smile. "Do it. Otherwise I'm going to be useless. And I can't be useless. I have to learn this."

In an instant, she was swallowed into that pale, clear blue, like falling into the sea. Maybe he spoke, but she couldn't hear anything, only a faint rushing in her ears. Then she opened her eyes, a bit startled. "Did I fall asleep?" she asked.

"Nope. How do you feel?"

"Like...well, pretty much exactly like you said I would," she said with surprise. The weariness that had become her constant companion was gone, both the heaviness that dragged at her body and the cloudiness that invaded her mind. Elena couldn't remember the last time she'd felt quite like this, not when her days were filled with the mundane business of living, her nights were filled with monsters, and her snatched hours of sleep were filled with nightmares. She felt almost _young _again.

"Been working on my technique," he said smugly. "Glad to see it's paying off. But remember—it's not real. You feel peppy because I made you believe it was true."

"I don't actually know what that means," Elena admitted. She rose from the couch, pacing in front of the fire. She felt strong, she felt awake, she felt ready to go kick Klaus' ass. "But I kinda want you to come over and do this for me every morning."

"That would be a bad thing. It's like...when you drink, you feel warmer, right? But alcohol actually decreases your body temperature, it just tricks your brain into feeling all hot and tingly. Same deal here. Your mind believes you're well-rested, but your body knows it's a lie. Relying on compulsion for a caffeine hit too often means you'll just collapse in a little puddle when you least expect it, just like alcohol will help you freeze to death even though you feel toasty," Damon explained, tossing back the last dregs of his spiked coffee without a hint of irony.

"Really? Alcohol doesn't actually make you warmer?" Elena asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet. It all felt so real. She understood that compulsion could make her a puppet, could manipulate her limbs and force words from her mouth, but how could it make her feel like this? Nothing could be so convincing.

Damon rolled his eyes. "Glad you're focusing on the big picture. Remind me to use fewer analogies in the future; they obviously confuse you." He clapped his hands together and stood. "But it does segue nicely into today's lesson, so we'll let it slide."

The giddiness and lightness she'd felt ebbed away as he stalked toward her. Unconsciously, she fell into that fighter's crouch Ric had been teaching her—knees bent, low, wary, and poised to strike. It wasn't a response to Damon; not really. It's just whenever he approached her with that sly, calculating look on his face, things usually ended uncomfortably for her. The training was necessary, but that didn't mean the fear of the unknown didn't make her heart race and her palms sweat.

Damon stopped, his head canted to one side as he watched her. "You're beautiful when you're afraid."

"That's a really messed up thing to say," Elena said, shuffling back a few steps.

"Maybe, but it's true. When you're afraid, your eyes widen and your pupils dilate, just like when you're aroused. Your lips part and your chest heaves as your lungs starve for air. And the blood rushes to the surface of your skin, making your whole body glow." He advanced, and Elena retreated, step by step, until he'd backed her into a corner. Ric would be so pissed at her right now for letting herself get trapped like this. Of course, she was pretty pissed at herself for it, too.

"You need to back off, Damon," she said, trying to make her voice steely and hard. It came out as little more than a frightened squeak.

He bared his teeth in a chilling grin, but all she could see were his eyes, black and blue bleeding together until she was drowning, gasping for air. And then he was stepping back, hands held up in surrender. "You tell me to back off, I'll back off. If that's what you want," he said, a sinister drawl to his words.

That son of a bitch. "What did you do? You did something, but I don't know what," she said, clutching at her temple as if her mind would reveal its secrets if only she tried hard enough. But when she fought to recall what he might have whispered to her, there was only a blank void.

"Yep. We vampires are sneaky like that. Sometimes we aren't nice enough to let you know what you're being compelled to do...or to feel," he said. "You're just gonna have to figure it out and find a way to stop it. Or not. Your call." The arrogance dripping from his every word was infuriating. She wanted to smack the smirk right off his full, sensuous lips.

"That's not _fair,_" she whined.

"Because Klaus always fights fair. Because turning and killing Jenna to spite you—well, to spite me—was fair. Because re-introducing Stefan to the joys of human blood was fair. Talking about fairness wastes my time," he said with disgust. He turned his back on her, heading for the bar. Those dark jeans fit him like a glove, muscles rippling under the thick fabric as he walked away. But he was right; Klaus didn't play fair. At the same time, this was throwing her into the deep end. She couldn't even reliably fight compulsion yet, and here he was demanding that she not only break his orders, but that she first figure out just what she was supposed to be breaking. Great.

"How am I supposed to figure it out, Damon? It could've been anything," she pointed out.

"Sure could've been," he agreed, pawing through the bottles and decanters until he found an acceptable libation, pouring two stiff fingers into a glass. Elena couldn't help but admire the silhouette of his back, how those broad shoulders narrowed to a trim waist. While she'd seen Damon _au naturel, _it had only been for brief flashes before turning away, hands clamped firmly over her eyes. What would it be like to see him bare and beautiful, taking her time drinking him in—sculpted calves, chiseled thighs, those muscles darting down his sides that she didn't even have a name for. And there as a crowning center piece, his hard, jutting-

Wait. This was not normal. You'd have to be blind not to admire the man's body, but it wasn't exactly normal to ramble into long, intense fantasies about how he'd look in the buff while they were in the middle of a conversation. No. He hadn't. Goddammit, of course he had. "You asshole," she groaned, collapsing on the couch, her knees drawn up to her chest.

"What'd I do now?"

"'I wanted it to be real,'" she mimicked. "Guess that was all a load of bull." She didn't know why she was surprised. Why was she surprised? Classic Damon was written all over this one. "You compelled me to want you, you dick."

He sauntered toward her, and she closed her eyes. She wasn't going to play this game, wasn't going to look at him. Calm. Breathe. Remove the external stimulus and focus on who she was and what she wanted. She knew what the compulsion was now, and she could break it.

"Close, but no cigar." This was all so fucking funny to him, his voice warm and mocking all at the same time. "Though that _is _an interesting development." The couch shifted as he sat on the far end. She could smell his cologne, something expensive and masculine.

"Sex or violence. Those are the only two gears you have, aren't they?" she gritted. She wasn't going to play this game, wasn't going to let her body turn traitor on her. If she could break a violent compulsion, she could break this one, no matter how much her hands trembled at his nearness or how her nipples strained against the fabric of her bra when he spoke.

"Nah, I've got a couple others, but those are definitely the most fun," he said cheerfully. "Talk me through it, Elena—what's going on?"

"Hell no," she said without hesitation, hugging her knees closer to her chest. Compulsion or no, she was stronger than her body and her base desires. Elena Gilbert was no slut. Sure, sex was fun, but she wasn't a slave to her hormones like so many teenagers were. And it seemed Damon hadn't compelled her to do anything specific—her hands weren't wandering as they had before. While her breasts ached, her skin tingled in the slightest draft, and her pulse pounded between her legs, she could fight it off. At least until she could get out of here.

"Fine. Have it your way. Why don't I tell you what I'm observing, and you tell me if it matches up with what you're feeling, hm?" He didn't wait for an answer before barreling on."Your heart's beating a little fast for you. I'd put it at about eighty beats per minute instead of your normal, sedate sixty-five. Blood's rushing, throbbing in a couple of key places. It's practically singing. And then there's just a whiff of something in the air-" he sniffed obscenely. "Yep, smells like sex."

"Oh, _gross. _You're disgusting," she said, lurching to her feet. All right, think. There had to be some blood still reaching her brain, though the way her body burned, she wouldn't bet on it. The compulsion wasn't to be attracted to Damon, but it was something in that family. And obviously it was something that had cranked her arousal up to eleven.

"It's a good thing I love watching you squirm—literally and figuratively—because repeating myself is getting boring. You're not going about this the right way. When Klaus comes and orders you to jam a piece of wood into Caroline's heart, are you going to spend time being outraged or are you going to focus on beating him?" Damon leaned forward. "Did you forget everything that worked for you last night? Breathing, focusing, shutting everything out?" His voice dropped, a low rumble that made Elena's stomach clench with desire. "Or is it that you really _want _to feel like this?"

"Just shut up; you're not helping." But that was a lie. Everything snapped into clear focus. What her body was feeling wasn't real. Just like the boost of energy had been a lie, so was this intense, aching _wanting _that devoured her body from head to toe. Her body had been told to feel a certain way, so it did. But her body was a dirty rotten liar. Breathe in. Breathe out.

"Good. Heart rate's slowing. I think the trick to getting through to you is pissing you right the fuck off," Damon said. His voice was closer, but Elena didn't look at him. Focus. Focus on who you are and what you want.

"Then lucky me; I have the best possible teacher."

He chuckled, throaty and rich and right in her ear. She jumped, any zen she'd managed to garner dashed in an instant. "Whoops, heart rate's up again. Sorry about that," he said remorselessly. So close. He was so close to her, it would be so easy just to turn and fold herself into his arms, smash her lips against his and grind her hips close, pressing against his hard, unyielding body, tug his erection free and drive it home, anything to fill the aching need she felt. The thought of it made her moan, an animal sound originating deep within her, a sound she wasn't sure she'd ever heard before.

"What do you want, Elena?" Damon asked quietly.

"I don't know," she said, her hands fluttering to the fly of her own jeans before flitting away again. No. She wasn't this person.

"I know, Elena. I know what you need." The tips of his fingers ghosted across the nape of her neck, tender and light as a breeze. "Relief," he murmured. "Let me give it to you, and it'll all be over."

There was nothing in this world she wanted more. All she knew was need; all she wanted was release. But that was the easy road."I have to break it, Damon. I have to. That's why I'm here." Her voice was so breathy, kittenish and high, and she was losing the battle. Like a sleepwalker, she turned to him, molding her body against his. Felt him hard and straining against her and stood on tiptoe, leaning in to kiss him, to devour him whole.

Panic flashed across his face, warring with a deep, primal urge. His head bent, lips hovering a heartbeat away from hers. But then he seized her chin in his hand, his very touch sending fireworks exploding along her skin. "Not like this. God, I wish I could do this. But I can't. It has to be real." There was such brutalizing sadness in his eyes, such loathing and desire that it even penetrated Elena's lust-filled daze. Still holding her face in the palm of his hand, he wrapped the other arm firmly around her waist.

Pools of blue were lapping around her again, driving everything else away but the connection between them. "Come for me," he ordered.

And Christ, she did. If it hadn't been for his hand clenched around her waist, she would have been incoherent on the floor in a trembling pile. But he held her, supported her as her body thrashed with sudden, breathtaking release, her hands clutching great handfuls of his shirt as her legs collapsed under her. And then it was gone. All the wanting, all the needing, the ache and the desire all faded away in the aftershocks. Damon held her silently until she managed to get her feet under her again. They stared at each other in silence for timeless moments.

Then Elena turned and ran.


	5. Force

It had been two days since Elena fled the boarding house. Two days since she'd staggered home, mind and body still swirling in a cloud of emotions and feelings and sensations that didn't make any sense. Two days since she'd stripped naked and shoved every piece of clothing she wore into a trash bag, from her sapphire blue bra to her black panties, still warm and damp. They smelled like him; they smelled like her, and she never wanted to see them again. Two days since she'd stood in the shower until the hot water ran out, tears she couldn't fully explain mixing with the spray.

It had been one day since she'd last seen Damon, striding into the Grill after school, eyes raking across the chattering, laughing patrons. Matt had let her slip out through the back. Had Damon spotted her? Probably. But he didn't pursue her, and she was glad.

She didn't know when she'd be ready to see him again. Even after two days of thought, two sleepless nights, she still didn't understand what had happened. She replayed the entire evening in excruciating detail, following the instructions he'd given her when this all began: Know who you are and what you want. If she could figure out what part of that evening had been incompatible with those two things, she could get to its source. But she couldn't.

Well, that wasn't quite true. It was pretty damn obvious that some part of the compulsion had involved sex, had involved ratcheting her desire up to obscene levels. Even in the throes of passion with Stefan (nothing she'd ever done with Matt could qualify as either a "throe" or a "passion," so he didn't count), she'd never felt like that, never felt that her entire body would fly apart if she didn't find satisfaction, didn't fill the empty, aching void.

She almost wished that the obvious solution was true, that he'd compelled her to want him. Because God, she had wanted him. Not just because he was the only man in the room, but she'd specifically, definitely, unequivocally wanted Damon Salvatore. On every horizontal and vertical surface of the house, in every position imaginable. Not that she'd ever done anything like that before. Hardly. With Matt, they'd taken advantage of any hidden spot they could find—necking in his truck, fooling around in the woods during a bonfire, a few frenzied moments in the locker room after a football game trying to figure out what parts went where. And with Stefan, well, it was in bed, in missionary, with the lights off, thank you very much. He'd said he couldn't bear for her to see him if he changed in the heat of the moment, if the blood swirled in his eyes and the veins crawled on his cheeks. She'd obliged him, assuming there would always be time to try other things. But there hadn't been. Maybe never would be now.

But Damon had said that he hadn't compelled her to want him. Close, but no cigar. Maybe she was crazy,but she believed him. If he'd compelled her to feel attracted to _him_, why had he turned her away when she was putty in his hand, her body crushed against his and begging for sex? Why had he given her release without laying a single finger on her, without finding any satisfaction for himself? No, whatever that fucking compulsion had been, it hadn't made her want Damon. Elena was pretty sure she'd done that all on her own.

Maybe it was to be expected. Any way you sliced it, the man was sex on a stick. So when she'd been hornier than Caroline after a few Jell-O shots, was it any wonder that she'd wanted him? Besides the obvious physical appeal, something had been happening between them, had ever since she'd cradled him in her arms on his deathbed, growing steadily throughout the long, hot summer as they'd searched fruitlessly for Stefan, as he'd protected her and saved her and comforted her and made her laugh when all she wanted to do was give up and weep. That she cared for Damon was a given. She'd even admit that she loved him. But in what way? Like she loved Ric, as a friend and a protector and a teacher? Or as she loved Stefan, as a man and a lover and a partner? There was the real question, and she just didn't have an answer.

So she'd done her best not to think about that, not to remember the feeling of his body pressed against hers, not to remember that look of lust and love and panic that had flickered across his face when she'd tried to kiss him, tried not to remember how his strong arms had held her as every nerve in her body screamed in release. Instead, she'd obsessed over the original compulsion that had started all this. She'd spent hours sitting on her bed, breathing deeply, searching the dark corners of her mind for some clue. She'd even looked up meditation techniques on the Internet and played plinky, weird music with lots of flutes that were supposed to help her reach her deeper subconscious. The meditation had only made her feet fall asleep, and the music had only irritated her. She was no closer now than she had been two days ago.

Elena abandoned her latest effort, opening her eyes and stretching the kinks out of her legs. The prickle at the back of her neck told her he was there before she saw him standing by the window. "We have a door, you know."

"Right, because if I'd rung the bell and asked to be let in, you would have welcomed me inside and not slammed the door in my face," he retorted.

She couldn't fault the logic there. "Maybe you should've taken the hint."

"Never been very good at that." He approached the bed, and Elena immediately sprang to her feet. The last thing she wanted was to be anywhere near this bed with him right now. But he wasn't even looking at her. He only had eyes for Mr. Snuggles. He picked up the little bear, looking down at the toy with a smile.

"You came here to molest my bear?" Elena asked. She regretted the words as soon as she'd spoken them. Way to get this difficult conversation off to an awkward start, Gilbert.

But Damon took it in good-natured stride. "You caught me; I just can't get enough of stuffed animals." Carefully, he set Mr. Snuggles back on the bed, propped against a pillow. "You know why I'm here."

Elena skirted the bed, perching on the edge of the window seat. Much more neutral territory, not nearly as many complicated connotations. "Tell me what the compulsion was."

He sighed, sinking onto the foot of the bed. It was his turn to look exhausted, though Elena suspected that had more to do with the emotional upheaval of the past few days rather than any lack of sleep. She wasn't even sure if vampires really needed sleep, or if they just did it out of boredom. But that was all beside the point right now. "You didn't figure it out." It was a statement, not a question.

Elena's eyes narrowed. "No, I didn't. Not for lack of trying, but I didn't. You owe me the truth." Damon Salvatore didn't owe her much; he'd repaid any kindness she'd ever done for him ten times over this past summer. But he did owe her the truth.

"I do. I..." He broke off, staring down at the floor. The muscles in his jaw were clenched tight, a vein throbbing at his temple. For the first time, Elena started to feel truly afraid of what he'd compelled her to do. What was so bad that he couldn't even _say _it? "It was petty. Really fucking petty. But you...God, you looked so...And I just wanted you to understand, just for a _minute, _what it's like." Damon ran his fingers through his hair, clutching at the long strands in frustration. "I'm not making any sense."

"No, you aren't. Damon, just _tell _me. Whatever it is, I have to know." Every moment that passed convinced her further it was something horrible beyond her wildest imaginings. If he'd only compelled her to be horny, he would've spilled the beans gleefully, accompanied by wild eyebrow acrobatics. But his reluctance was terrifying.

Damon raised his eyes to meet hers, and Elena could tell it took a tremendous force of will for him to meet her gaze. "I compelled you to feel...what I feel for you. Physically." He held his hands up, preemptively warding off the tirade Elena was ready to unleash. "Not toward me. Just the frustration, the need for something you can't have, the fucking blue balls." He paused. "Metaphorically on that count. It was spiteful and small, but that's what it was."

She'd heard the words, but they weren't making sense. "You...you compelled your _horniness _into me? Is that what you just said?" Surely to God she'd heard that wrong. There had to be another explanation.

"Not literally. It didn't just jump out of me and into you. But on a practical level...yeah, that's pretty much what happened." His eyes dropped to the floor. Embarrassment was _not _a look she was used to seeing out of Damon, but she was fairly certain that's what this was. But an instant later his eyes were back on hers. "I didn't think it'd go that far. I thought you'd figure it out or break it or...something."

"Or something. That was your big plan-'or something'? How about you just admit it: You didn't have a plan. You were so wrapped up in playing out your stupid revenge for something I have no control over, that you just did it without thinking. Really? You didn't think it'd go that far? What the hell do you _expect_ to happen when you do something like that?" She felt violated. She felt unclean all over again. It was one thing if he'd just made her a slave to her own hormones, but he'd done so much more than that. She'd felt what he felt. For her. It was flattering and disgusting and left her more than a little impressed with his self control. But mostly, she was pissed off.

"Come on, Elena, I thought you'd get a little hot and bothered and then figure it out. I mean, Jesus Christ, you broke that compulsion the night before. I thought you were ready for it. And I'm sorry for misjudging you on that front. But for the rest of it? I did exactly what I told you I'd do. If that upsets you, you just need to get over it," Damon said. Any chagrin had long since exited the building.

She didn't slap him, but it was a near thing. Her hand clenched and unclenched at her side, itching to wipe that self-righteous look off his face. But there was only one thing that saved him: The fact that he hadn't kissed her. Hell, the fact that he hadn't fucked her right then and there, as she surely would have begged him to do. He'd had every opportunity, and he'd done the right thing. No matter how mad she was at him, she couldn't hate him. Not for this.

"And then you just compel me to-" she couldn't even say the word. Not in front of him. Sure, these things happened, but they weren't something you _talked _about.

"I compelled you to what? Orgasm? Come screaming like a banshee? I couldn't just let you walk out of there like that; you probably would have jumped on the first guy you saw. I was doing you a favor," he said, as if _he _were the wronged party in all this.

"You were out of line, Damon. That was all out of line," she began, but her words terminated in a yelp as he flashed in front of her, trapping her against the wall. He wasn't quite touching her, but the space between them was measured in finger lengths.

"That's your problem, Elena. You still believe there _is_ a line." His voice was low and intense, his eyes locked on hers. "Right and wrong, good and bad...none of that really matters. The only thing I'm concerned with is alive and dead. So go ahead. Hate me, stomp away, call it quits. I said I wouldn't let you stop, but hey, mea culpa on the other night. So I'll give you a chance to walk away now. Otherwise, we keep going harder than before. You'll hate what you do more than ever, all so one day you can spit in my eye and tell me to take my compulsion and cram it. Because that's what matters, and that's what will keep you alive."

Elena stared up at him, every emotion she'd ever felt warring within her. She despised what he'd done to her, what he'd forced her to feel. Felt vastly uncomfortable that what she'd felt had been a reflection of what _he _felt, giving her a taste of just how badly Damon wanted her. Hated him for giving her an ultimatum he knew she'd never refuse. But mostly, she feared what she felt for him all on her own, without any vampiric assistance at all.

Elena planted her hand on his chest and pushed him firmly away. While she no sooner could have moved an unwilling Damon than she could have moved a brick wall, he obligingly stepped back a pace. There. Better. She needed some room to breathe. "I've come too far to stop. We're doing this. Right now."

Damon smiled, pleased with her answer. "Good girl. Since our last experiment was a resounding failure in every sense of the word, we're going to go back to the beginning." He grabbed her desk chair and sat astride it, forearms resting on the back of the chair. That left Elena to sit on the edge of the bed. Not where she'd wanted to be.

As always, the compulsion caught her without warning. His eyes didn't even _look _different; it's just that it was impossible to look away. "You will answer my questions truthfully until I tell you to stop. No acting cute and trying to weasel out of them this time—you will tell me the whole, complete truth." His pupils dilated. "Do you understand?"

A feeling of weightlessness, of sleepiness washed over her, trying to tease the words out of her without her will or consent. Screw that. She did her best to shake of that strange, echoey feeling. If she had to answer the truth, so be it, but she'd answer it on her own terms. "That was pretty clear, Damon. I got it."

Damon blinked, and Elena could look away. "Good. Better test it to make sure, though. What color bra are you wearing?"

Elena looked down at the baggy sleep shirt she wore, then back to Damon. "I'm in my pajamas, I'm not wearing a bra. And didn't you learn _anything _from last time?" The words popped out. Shit. She was going to have to slow down and think things through. This was not friendly banter—this was a test.

He squinted at her chest, as if trying to see through the oversized shirt and confirm that she was, indeed, bra-less. "Now, now, you're the one who's supposed to be learning, not me. I guess I'll accept that as the truth without...independent verification." Elena rolled her eyes so hard, she thought she might sprain something. "We'll ramp things up a little. What exactly did you feel toward me that night?"

Elena grabbed thick handfuls of her comforter, knotting the fabric in her hands, trying to choke down the indignation that rose within her. After everything they'd just said, he was going to go right back to that raw, gaping wound? But anger wasn't going to help her now. Focus. She did not _want _to tell Damon. She wasn't _going_ to tell Damon. "I wanted you to-" There was a brief moment of struggle, an instant where she thought she might be able to tell Damon to go to hell. But that pipe dream faded. "-bend me over the couch and take me from behind. Or for you to throw me up against the wall so I could wrap my legs around you and f-fuck until I couldn't see straight," she finished, scarcely able to believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. Well. Lost that battle. Her cheeks flamed.

Damon was staring at her in open-mouthed surprise. He began to speak, no doubt to make an offer to do just that, but Elena cut him off. No. She would not let him win this battle. "So that's what you want to do to me? All the time?" Elena was pretty sure if she felt like that anytime she was around Damon, she'd go stark raving mad.

"Not all the time. But enough of it. Turns out I'm just a little better at controlling myself than you are," he smirked. "How ironic is _that?_"

"Shut up. Ask me the next question," Elena said. She wasn't going to think about the implications of that right now. Couldn't. Had to focus on what he was going to ask next.

"I can't shut up _and _ask you another question," he teased.

"Damon."

"No sense of comedy at all. It's sad, really. Fine. Nice work, by the way—you almost managed to get around it. Almost." He eyed her appraisingly, and Elena just knew he was trying to figure out the most embarrassing, awkward thing imaginable to ask her. "When did you stop loving Stefan?"

She hadn't been expecting that, but the answer came swiftly and without hesitation."I still love Stefan,"

"Hm. Yeah, I'll buy that." His eyes narrowed. "Let me rephrase. When did you stop being _in love _with Stefan?"

Elena fully intended to say that she still was in love with Stefan, that she knew things were hard right now, but that they could work it out and be together again once Klaus was gone. What came out was a different story. "Chicago. I know he said those...those awful things to protect me, so I'd leave and he could keep Klaus away from us. But I knew that while he loved me enough to keep me alive, he didn't love me enough to fight for me." She clamped her hands over her mouth. She'd broken the compulsion. That had to be it. Because what she was saying was a lie. It had to be. "That's not true. What I just said—it wasn't true. I broke it. Did you feel it break? Like before?"

There was a moment of aching silence. Then Damon shook his head. "It didn't," he said gently.

"How...how could I not know? This is you, this is something else you did. To come between Stefan and me," Elena said. She _loved _Stefan...didn't she?

"If you want to make me the bad guy, you can. I'll let you. But I didn't do this," he said. No. She couldn't stand the way she was looking at her. She didn't want his pity—not now, not ever.

Elena jammed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She was not going to cry. Not in front of Damon, not about Stefan. Whether it was true or not was something to think about another time. "Fine. Whatever. Hit me again," she ordered.

"You sure? We could-"

"You're supposed to push me, Damon. Now ask me another question," she said. "Though if it could not be about your brother, that'd be great."

"Fair enough." Damon drummed his fingers on the back of the chair, considering. Elena closed her eyes. She was Elena Gilbert. She wanted to be free to give the answer she wanted to give, not the half-truths the compulsion forced out of her. She could do this. "Are you in love with me?" he asked, his voice so soft she had to strain to hear the words.

Elena felt something pressing on her, the weight of the compulsion demanding an answer from her, an answer her mind wouldn't even reveal to _her_, but which she knew she had to vocalize. But Elena bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood. She was Elena Gilbert, and she did not want to answer. She fell forward with a gasp. Damon was at her side, hand resting on her back, helping her up. "Take it easy, just take it easy," he said.

Elena collapsed against him, still struggling to catch her breath. "I did it. I don't have to answer," she panted.

He patted her arm. "I know. Well done. I'm glad."

Elena didn't need compulsion to know he was lying.

* * *

><p><em>Sorry guys, this would have been up last night but the site was being peevish. Little more character-focused this time, but if you're here for the smut, it'll return next chapter with a vengeance. Regardless of why you're here, thank you so much for taking the time to leave reviews, or simply subscribe. The response to this story has just been staggering. Thank you.<em>


	6. Buffeted

When morning dawned, Elena knew two things to be true: She did not love Stefan, and Damon confused the hell out of her.

It had been another long, sleepless night, tossing and turning, her pillow wet with tears as she agonized over the questions Damon had asked her. She considered them from every angle, every contingency, and plumbed the depths of her heart to discover what was real.

The first question was actually the easier one. She wasn't in love with Stefan anymore. Once Damon had forced the word from her unwilling mouth, it seemed so obvious. The Stefan she'd loved was gone. Maybe the Elena he'd loved was gone, too.

Did she want him to be happy, to come back to himself and break free from Klaus and regain what he'd lost? Yes. A thousand times yes. She'd give everything she had to buy Stefan just a moment of happiness. But that happiness wouldn't be with her. Not anymore.

Elena loved Stefan for being brave enough to turn himself over to Klaus so Damon could live. She loved him for his courage in drawing Klaus away from her and protecting her. And she hated him for his cowardice in refusing to stand and fight. Stefan had chosen the easy way out—to stay with Klaus, to keep her hidden. If he really loved her, he would have come back to her when she'd found him in Chicago. He hadn't been compelled, he'd had every choice to come with her. But he'd chosen fear instead of love and what they'd had was destroyed on that muggy Chicago night. When Elena looked to the future, she never saw herself in Stefan's arms. Not anymore.

But the second question was where things got tricky. Was she in love with Damon? The fact that her reaction wasn't an immediate, violent _no_ was remarkable. This was, after all, the man who had killed her brother. The man who had turned her biological mother. The man who had tried to kill her, tried to turn her. The fact that the idea of loving Damon didn't send her into gales of hysterical laughter or bloodcurdling screams was a miracle. Because there was no earthly reason that she _should _love him.

Except he protected her. And he made her laugh. And every time he looked at her, every time those blue eyes turned on her with that heat and that hunger, half monster and half man, she wanted to fly into his arms and never let him go.

And Damon _loved_ her. He loved her enough to destroy her, to burn away her weaknesses and rebuild her, piece by piece, into a newly forged creature that was stronger, wiser, better than she'd been before. He loved her enough to hurt her, to be constant and unwavering in his love, even when she hated him for it. He loved her enough to stay with her, to fight with her and for her against whatever the Originals could dish out. His love was brutal, his love was terrifying, but his love was real.

But was love enough? Just considering her feelings for Damon felt like a betrayal of Stefan. Even if she didn't want to be with the younger Salvatore anymore, there were still definite rules about dating your ex's siblings. Especially if your ex was an emotionally distant killer with a major martyr complex. And Damon was...well, _Damon_. A murderer, a predator, a ticking time bomb.

Did she love Damon? The answer wasn't no.

* * *

><p>"Tell me what color the sky is," Damon said.<p>

The vampire had stepped his game up tonight. This was no gentle, cajoling compulsion. It wasn't even the kind of compulsion that gripped her heart and made her lungs burn for air until she told the truth. The force he put behind the stupid question was incredible, like being buffeted by a storm. All she could hear were his words echoing in her ears, his eyes burning into hers, and the whole universe begging her to answer, just to answer with the truth.

"The sky is orange," Elena said, her voice soft and dreamy.

"Much better." He smiled, and the world breathed again as the weight lifted from her shoulders. She held her stance a beat longer, just to show him she could, before collapsing onto the couch. Throwing off compulsion still wasn't easy, but she'd gotten to a point where she could answer whatever she liked to a compelled question more often than not. So Damon had added a new wrinkle: Making him believe she was still compelled. Not only did she have to look calm, cool, and collected, she even had to worry about her _heartbeat_. It was exhausting, and Elena felt as limp as a dishrag.

And even though she'd been working her ass off for hours, Damon wouldn't let her off the hook. "You've still got to work on your tell, though. It gives you away every time, like a whore sweating in church."

Elena lifted her head enough to glare at him. "Like you know anything about church."

"But I know more than enough about whores to make up for it," Damon said. Elena smiled in spite of herself.

How was she supposed to fix her tell, that damn unconscious reaction that gave her away every time she managed to break the compulsion? Apparently it gave her a twitch. Just a little one, in her right eye. But since eye contact was a prerequisite for compulsion, it was damned inconvenient. How she was going to defeat a muscle spasm, Elena didn't know. She'd figure something out.

"You ready to go again?" Damon asked, already leaning forward.

Elena threw a hand over her eyes with a groan. "Can we take a break? Just for a minute? This is a lot harder than it looks."

"Well, yeah, that's kinda the point. But we can take five," Damon said.

Elena sat in blissful silence, savoring the stillness. But she couldn't leave it be. "I have a question. For you," Elena said. She was tired of being the one answering all the questions. While Damon had stuck to decidedly less personal topics this time around, Elena was still weary of endlessly spewing answers without receiving any in return. And this particular query had been nagging her for days.

"Christ. Let me get a drink first." The chime of crystal on crystal. The splash of bourbon. The satisfied sigh as he took the first sip. Damon sank onto the couch opposite her, comfortably slouched. "Fire when ready."

"If you really feel...all that for me, why didn't you just compel me to want you back? Or to sleep with you? You could have, a hundred times over," Elena said.

Damon visibly recoiled, taken aback by her question. "Are you kidding me? You're not serious, right?"

"Well, yeah, I am. Whatever that feeling was, Damon, it was intense. And it would've been easy for you to do."

His eyes turned stormy, and he tossed back half the drink in a gulp. "I have never, _ever_ compelled a woman to sleep with me. Not tell anyone about it afterward? Sure. Be open to a little recreational biting? Absolutely. But a compulsion fuck is the ultimate pity fuck, Elena. And even I have some standards. Especially when it comes to you."

"But what about Caroline? What about Andie?" Elena asked, genuinely surprised by his answer. Not that Damon would have a hard time getting women to sleep with him, but that he was so violently, passionately opposed to the idea. Damon didn't have many lines in the sand, but this seemed to be one of them.

"Neither of them are any of your business." His jaw clenched, and he would not meet her gaze.

"Why? Everything about me is _your_ business."

"You asked me for this, Elena. I didn't ask for fucking psychotherapy from you." The rest of the bourbon disappeared down his throat. He considered the empty glass. "But the answer is still no. I never compelled them for sex. Or to love me. Hell, didn't even ask them to like me very much. Just to not be afraid. Just to stay with me." He smiled sadly, lost in his thoughts. Then his eyes sharpened, falling on her again. "I'm not proud of what I did to those two. Especially Caroline. But I don't lie to myself, Elena, and compelling people to fuck you or love you is all a lie. It has to be-"

"Real. I got it. I didn't mean to bring up a sore subject. If I were you, I don't know that I could be so strong." What must it have been like, to be alone for a hundred years, just waiting for the only person you loved to return from a fate worse than death? What must it have been like to ache for just a moment of love? But he'd never never allowed himself that luxury when it was right there for the taking. No, Elena knew she couldn't have been so strong.

His eyes met hers, and she saw the toll those years of loneliness had taken on him, the hollow place they'd carved in his soul. In a flash, it was gone, and Damon smiled, cold and collected once more. "Your five minutes are up."

Elena sat up with a sigh. "I hope my stupid twitch cooperates. All right, let's do it."

"Nah, no more twenty questions. Time for something a little more advanced." He stood and headed back to the bar. Elena was glad liver failure wasn't an issue for him. "I'm convinced you can do a decent job at lying to a vampire, if you want to. What we haven't worked on is how to stop someone from really getting into your head."

"Uh, we haven't? What've we been doing this whole time?" Elena asked, unnerved. Damon had done nothing _but _get into her head for the past week.

"Child's play. Kid stuff. At every point along the way, you've always known you were compelled. Maybe didn't know what exactly you'd been compelled to do, but you knew. What happens if you couldn't tell up from down? What if you thought you were attacking Klaus—but it was actually Ric?" Damon brought the decanter back with him as he sat opposite her.

A shiver ran down her spine. "You—they-can do that?" How could she defend against that? If her own eyes betrayed her, what could she do?

"Yep. Same deal as when I convinced you that you weren't tired. Ordering your mind to create images that aren't real." Damon paused, his glass halfway to his mouth. "One of Katherine's specialties, actually."

How unsurprising. Of course Katherine would like to cloud the truth. Was that what she'd done to the brothers? Made them see a kind, loving woman who wasn't real? Damon must have seen the question in her eyes. He shook his head. "Not to me. She never compelled me—well, not about that. Other things. Nothing major."

"And you're just okay with that? That she screwed with your head? And you call that love?" Elena asked with disgust.

Damon raised his eyebrows. "Another issue that's none of your business. Not even a _little _of your business."

"You brought her up," Elena said defensively. The whole Katherine affair was just sad.

"My bad. Less talking, more compelling." He set his glass down, and Elena tensed in anticipation. What was he going to do? What would he make her see?

Elena stood on the rolling lawn of a graceful, columned house. The heat enveloped her like an embrace, exacerbated by the heavy hoop skirt that had replaced her hoodie and jeans. The turgid breeze bore the scent of magnolias. All right. He'd started with an easy one. Obviously this wasn't real. She wasn't going to mistake the Salvatore boarding house for...wherever this was. "Lame, Damon. This _so _fake," she said. There was no summer sun, only a crackling fire. There were no magnolias, only the smell of leather and bourbon and woodsmoke.

"Miss Katherine!" a familiar voice called. She turned, long skirts swirling around her as she came face-to-face with...Damon. But not Damon. Not _her _Damon, anyway. She objectively knew that this Damon was exactly the same physical age as the Damon she knew, but he looked so _young_. And happy. His eyes were dancing with a quiet joy, and he sneaked a quick peek around before catching her up in his arms and twirling her in a circle. If this was an illusion, it was a damn good one. She felt his arms around her waist, caught the scent of horses and sweat and always that undercurrent of leather lingering on his skin. Her feet reached the ground again, and he smiled. "Finally, I find you alone."

"This isn't funny, I'm not Katherine," Elena said crossly.

"As you like. Who would you rather be? My Guinevere? My Beatrice? No, I know. You must be my Juliet." He brushed a ringlet behind her ear, his face soft and tender. "You are my sun, after all."

Why was Damon showing her this? To prove to her that he had loved Katherine? Because this vision, this memory or illusion or whatever it was, he _loved _Katherine. With all his heart. Maybe it was compelled; she didn't know. But it was love. "Damon, I'm Elena. I'm not her." Why was she trying to reason with him? He wasn't real. "Dammit. You're just distracting me. That's what this is." Elena broke free from his arms. Picture the boarding house. The creaking of the leather couch, the settling of the old house, Damon sitting across from her, not a moon-eyed young lover, but something older and wiser, cynical and hard.

"Katherine! Don't leave me!"

Then she collapsed on her knees in the boarding house, gasping for breath. What the hell had _that _been?

"Good. Again." Elena had only a flash of blue eyes before the world changed.

Her chest was still heaving, her head still pounding as she surveyed her new surroundings. They didn't help. Flames encircled her, scorching her skin. Jenna, twice dead, was crumpled beside her. "Thank you," a slithery voice whispered. Then there was only pain, the searing pain in her neck, the knowledge that life was seeping out of her with every beat of her heart, but that was all nothing compared to the sight of Jenna.

She felt like she was dying all over again, her heartbeat slowing, her vision tunneling into blackness. But she couldn't be dying. She'd survived this. But it was so tempting to let the blackness consume her, to go where she'd see Jenna and her parents and so many people she loved. But she'd survived and she was stronger and she would avenge Jenna and she couldn't do that if she died again now. "No," she whispered. This wasn't her.

The sky flashed the palest blue and the nightmare faded. She was back in the boarding house, but not in the living room. Damon's bedroom was alive with candles, and Elena gratefully collapsed onto the huge bed, heart hammering in her ears. Twice. She'd escaped twice, but every time she broke out of the dream worlds Damon created for her, it was harder to remember that she _had _to escape, that the visions she saw were delusions and lies. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe. In and out. She was Elena Gilbert, and she would fight this. She was Elena Gilbert, and she wanted to see what was real. She opened her eyes, and the bedroom and the candlelight remained. Worse, she realized she was wearing nothing more than a scrap of black silk, some kind of lingerie. She groaned. "Damon!"

"You shrieked?" Damon said from behind her. She whirled, and there he was, lounging bare-chested on the bed beside her, candlelight flickering off his pale, smooth chest, that damn mocking smirk on his face. But there was nothing but need in his eyes.

"Stop, Damon. I know what you're doing, and you just need to stop." Elena swallowed hard, but her mouth was dry.

"What? I'm not doing anything. I'm just sitting here, all innocent-like," Damon said, turning onto his side, head propped up with one hand, as if they were lovers who'd just finished—well, like they were lovers.

"You've never done anything innocently in your whole life," Elena said. "This isn't real. This room, this bed, this-" she indicated the teddy with a violent sweep of her hand. "-it's all just compulsion. Nothing is real."

"Sure it is. I mean, you're right, strictly speaking. Though you do look _smashing_. But only the window dressing is fake; everything else is real enough. You have your free will. You can choose to do—or not do—anything you want. After all, none of it's real."

"I thought you said it _was _real," Elena asked desperately. None of it made sense. She was exhausted and confused and it all _felt _real. The smooth cotton sheets beneath her, his nearness, the way her heart skipped a beat when he looked at her with those hooded eyes.

"It's whatever you want it to be." Faster than she could see, he was on top of her, supporting his weight on his arms as he loomed over her, every part of his body only inches away. Elena had never been so frightened, but nor had she ever felt quite so alive. "Do you want it to be real?" he breathed.

Dimly, Elena was aware that the two of them sat in a different room, only their eyes locked together. Elena knew that she had loved his brother, knew that there were a million reasons she shouldn't do this. But she didn't care.

She kissed him, chastely and sweetly, so like another kiss they'd shared in this very place. They broke apart, each searching for _something _in the eyes of the other. Then they leapt for one another, desperate and needing. Lips met in a bruising, punishing kiss, his tongue invading her mouth, dominant and demanding. It was a kiss that left no room for rational thought, no room for emotions. All that existed was the sensation of his mouth on hers, his hands sliding under the flimsy silken garment, easing it up over her hips, then over her breasts. Beneath, she was bare. They broke for an instant as he yanked the thing roughly off over her head, tossing it aside, before crashing back together, the softness of her breasts melting into his unyielding body, his erection pressed insistently against her as his hips dipped down toward her.

She gasped as he released her mouth, more kisses and blunted bites trailing along her jaw, down her neck. Stefan had _never _trusted himself to do that—hell, wouldn't let himself anywhere near her neck, let alone bite her, even without fangs. But all memory of Stefan was obliterated from her memory when Damon rolled her nipple into his mouth, tongue swirling the peaked tip. Her back arched toward him, but he placed a firm hand on her stomach, holding her against the bed. His other hand gripped her full breast, his flat palm creating wonderful, awful friction. Delicately, he bit the sensitive flesh of her nipple, the pleasure riding a knife's edge of pain.

"Damon," she cried sharply, and his head raised from her chest. As those blue eyes met hers, everything froze, the moment suspended in time like a drop of dew poised to fall and shatter into a million pieces. False. This was imaginary, this was all in her head. Who was she? What did she want?

The world exploded. "I just have to say something," Damon said, her necklace held outstretched in his hand. It was night; they were in her room. Why were they here?

"Why do you have to say it with my necklace?" she heard herself ask.

"Because what I'm about to say is probably the most selfish thing I've ever said in my life," he responded. She knew this night; she knew this place. Why couldn't she remember? "

"Damon, don't go there." The words came with no thought or will. She hadn't meant to speak the words, but then they were on her lips. He was compelling her to say them? Now?

"I just have to say it once. You just need to hear it. I love you, Elena." The words were so simple, said without pretense or drama. A statement of fact. "And it's because I love you that I can't be selfish with you. And why you can't know this." He'd never been selfish with her. Never taken what he'd wanted, never even really pursued it. Why did she know this night? How did she know these words?

"I don't deserve you," he confessed. "But my brother does." Why? Why did Stefan, the brother who ran, the brother who hid, the brother who left her—why did he deserve her when Damon didn't? Cool lips pressed against her forehead. There were so many things she wanted to say, but she couldn't find her voice. "God, I wish you didn't have to forget this." His hand was gentle against her cheek. "But you do." A single tear. A gust of wind.

The fire in the boarding house had burned to embers. No summer sun, no ritual flames, no flickering candles, no tears. Only a man and a woman, staring at each other until a single word broke the silence.

"Shit."

* * *

><p><em>Yes, I'm stretching the powers of compulsion as we've been seen them on the show, but I hope you'll forgive me the artistic license. <em>

_I cannot even begin to thank you enough for your amazing, overwhelming, gobsmacking reviews. Each and every one left a smile on my face. Special thanks go out to Lucy Freebird, who helped me correct a silly error in the last chapter. But even if you're one of the silent masses out there, thanks for following this little tale. More to come, my friends. _


	7. Vulnerable

Elena didn't know where she was. Oh, she knew where she _seemed_ to be, huddled in a heap on the floor before the faint glow of the fire, every muscle in her body aching, her head spinning. Damon knelt across from her, looking every bit as worn as she felt, face pale, eyes wide. The deep pile of the carpet was soft under her knees, the smell of woodsmoke heavy in the air. It all _felt _right. But her eyes and her body were lying bastards and she couldn't believe what they told her. Wouldn't that be the most insidious test of all—for him to show her what she expected to see?

What did she know was true? She squeezed her eyes shut. She was Elena Gilbert. She was the doppelganger. She lived in Mystic Falls. She was learning to fight compulsion, and when she opened her eyes, she would see what was real.

When she found the courage to crack her eyes open, she yelped in surprise. Damon was nearly nose-to-nose with her, his head turned to the side as he examined her like a butterfly pinned under glass. "How did you do that?"

"How did I—Damon, I didn't _do _anything. You're the one who- the one who -" The words wouldn't come. They tripped and fell over each other in a clumsy mess. Focus, Gilbert. Breathe. "Tell me this is real, Damon. I have to know where we are. I can't trust anything. Please, tell me it's real." Tears welled in her eyes. She believed this was true; it seemed real, but how could she ever be sure?

"Is it _real_? Jesus fucking Christ, Elena—you didn't just break the compulsion, you...fuck, I don't know. I've never-" He broke off with a growl. He pushed himself to his feet, stalking to the decanter of bourbon on the table. Even Elena couldn't miss how his hands shook as he poured a glass, how droplets of amber liquid splattered the table. He downed the drink in a gulp before refilling it and pressing the glass into her hand.

Everything was so jumbled in her head. Taking small sips of the nasty, bracing alcohol, she tried to make sense of it all. Four compulsions. Katherine, the sacrifice, the bedroom, the necklace. But that wasn't right. The last scene, Damon with his confession and his tears, had been distinctly different. Damon would never show her that weakness, never show her a man who loved her but loved his brother even more, never show her his humanity. But more than that, it hadn't felt vibrant and current as the other compulsions had. No, it was dusty and faded—a memory.

The glass in her hand was empty. In the meantime, Damon had apparently abandoned any pretense of civility and was drinking the last few fingers of bourbon directly from the decanter, trickles of liquid dripping down his neck. Whatever had passed between them had shaken the normally fastidious man to the core.

"That night. I know that night. That was the night we met Elijah, the night I was kidnapped." Suddenly the pieces began to fit together. How her necklace had returned to her after she'd been certain it was gone forever. The feeling of deja vu when Damon had kissed her on the forehead. All of it made sense. "What did you _do_?"

Damon drained the last drops, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Deliberately, he set the decanter down, slumping back to the floor. "You saw it. I don't know how, but you saw it. What do you want me to say?"

"I don't understand. I don't understand what you did. _Why_ did you make me forget?" After all, it wasn't as if his love was a surprise. Even then, she'd known. Elena couldn't quite pinpoint the moment she'd realized Damon loved her—when he'd tried to kiss her, the night Katherine had been so cruel? When they'd danced together at Miss Mystic Falls, bodies and souls nearly touching? Or when Isobel had said the words, bluntly and simply? She didn't know. But Damon's love hadn't been a secret for a long, long time. Why had he hidden it?

"Because I was stupid. Because I let myself hope. I let myself believe, just for a minute, that you could ever love me." Blue eyes caught her, and before she could retaliate, she was plunged back into the unreal.

She was staring at herself as she descended a staircase, bruised and bloodied but alive, radiating with relief and joy and pure love. Something long dormant stirred inside him (her?) a feeling that he'd believed was dead, an emotion he'd tried to ruthlessly cut out of his heart. But looking at her now, he knew his efforts had failed, that he loved this stupid, infuriating, beautiful girl, wanted her to run into his arms so he could shield her from the world. And for an instant, he believed she would.

But she didn't run to him. That look of joy and love? Wasn't for him. Never would be. Stefan was the one who would make her happy. If he really loved her, he would get out of the way. But not before he told her. Just once.

Elena was slammed back to herself, trembling from head to toe. For an instant, she'd _been _Damon, seen through his eyes, felt his hope being snuffed out in an instant. And what she'd seen, what she'd felt, scared the hell out of her. "Don't do that. Don't do that again." She couldn't stand it if he did it again, couldn't bear to feel so deeply. Was _that _what it meant to be a vampire? That depth of emotion was terrifying, beyond anything she'd experienced before.

"Does that answer your question, Elena? Why I stole your freewill, fucked with your head? Go ahead; I'm sure you're planning a tirade. Tell me how pathetic I am." Damon sounded weary to his very bones.

"I don't know what that was. God, Damon, I don't know _what_ that was. But whatever it was, it wasn't pathetic." It was..._noble. _It was selfless. What he'd felt that day had been so different from the lust he'd shown her. It was something both fierce and gentle, something deep and wide. Either Damon was the world's best liar, or he'd shown her the truth of what happened that night.

Damon looked at her skeptically. "You aren't going to scream at me? You aren't going to tell me you hate me?" Was that really what he thought of her? That after what she'd seen, she could still be angry? Maybe she should be. He'd stolen memories that should have been her decision to keep. But she couldn't hate him. Not for this.

"No. I think I'm just gonna lay here for a minute," she said, stretching out onto her back, staring up at the vaulted ceiling overhead. She was Elena Gilbert. She was eighteen years old. She was the doppelganger. Damon Salvatore loved her. She knew these things to be true.

A weight settled beside her. Damon lay next to her on the floor, their hands nearly touching. Silence settled over them like a heavy blanket.

She'd experienced his love from all angles now—the burning heat of his physical desire, the startling intensity of his longings. And she could only conclude one thing: It was scary as hell. A love like that was demanding and consuming. It was a love that would swallow her alive if she let it. And Elena didn't know that she could do that, didn't know that she could let go and allow those terrible, wonderful feelings to devour her whole.

If she reached out and took his hand, everything would change. Who Elena Gilbert was would undergo a seismic shift. Elena suddenly felt vulnerable on her back. Too unprotected. She sat up, arms curling around her knees.

"You weren't supposed to see that. How did you _do _that? It was almost like you were compelling me," Damon said. "But that's impossible." Damon turned on his side to face her, one hand propping his head up.

"How am I supposed to know? You looked at me, when we were...when we were-" Elena couldn't say the words.

"When I was rounding second base," he said, with a little flare of his eyes.

Every drop of blood in Elena's body was suddenly burning in her cheeks. "Yeah. That. And then you looked at me, and I remembered what you told me. Remembered it wasn't real. I thought about who I was and what I wanted and then we were there. But shouldn't you know what happened? You're the expert in all this," Elena pointed out.

Damon gave an exhausted sigh. "Fuck, Elena, I'm making this up as I go along."

Elena bolted upright, staring down at him. "_What_?"

"Don't _what_ me; it's not like there's a vampire handbook laying out all the rules for this shit. And did you miss the part where my vampire mom kinda sucked? I'm not sure there's a precedent for this, anyway. But winging it's obviously working, so spare me."

If she hadn't been so tired, she probably would have been angry. But it was simply too much effort right now. She lay back down beside him. "Why did you show me those things?" She paused. "Well, the first two, anyway. I think I can figure out why you showed me the bedroom."

"Right, you just don't want to talk about what _happened _in the bedroom." She started to protest, but he ran right over her. "I showed you the sacrifice because that's probably what an enemy would show you—your worst nightmare. I showed you 1864 because I was feeling nostalgic. That's all. I didn't have some nefarious plan."

"Nostalgic? You don't get nostalgic, Damon. Why did you want me to see you like that? So I would know that you loved her?" Of all the puzzle pieces from tonight's exercise, that was the one that didn't fit. Why would he show her a Damon who hadn't existed in a century, a Damon who loved a phantom?

Damon pushed himself to his feet and seized the fireplace poker, stoking the dying flames. "I wanted to show you that I could do it," he said softly.

"That you could do what?"

"That I could really love someone." He jabbed at the charred logs. "That maybe you'd see there's still a little of that love-struck idiot left in me."

Elena stood, feeling every ache and pain. She felt like she'd ridden through the eye of a hurricane, and it wasn't over yet. She had a choice. She could go to Damon now, tell him she knew the love he was capable of, to kiss him like she'd kissed him in the dream world, first sweetly, then with fire and verve and lose herself in his arms. She could choose to walk that winding, rocky road with him. Or she could choose the sure path, the one that was straight and flat and safe and stretched on forever to an endless, empty horizon.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you for showing me that. I think I'd like to go home now."

She was a coward.

* * *

><p>Sleep and school passed in a mindless blur until the time came for Elena to present herself for her lesson. She didn't want to go. Things were happening too fast, both with the training and with whatever was happening between the two of them. Elena wasn't sure what new horror Damon would unleash upon her, but she had confidence in his creativity to think of something suitably awful. For her. Because he was trying to help her. But she also knew that every moment they spent together only confused her more, only threatened to point her feet down that rocky, hard road. And that was far more frightening than whatever torture Damon could devise.<p>

She went anyway.

He was sprawled on the couch when she arrived, glass in hand. "Don't you ever move? Go outside? Do things? We need to find you a hobby, Damon," she said, tossing her book bag down.

"I've been thinking of adopting a puppy," he said

"Really?" Elena asked with childlike delight. An animal might be just the thing for Damon. Unconditional love and all that-

"No."

Elena rolled her eyes. "Of course not. That would be way too normal."

"Dogs are messy, smelly, and nasty." He glanced down at his forearm, drawing his hand into a fist. "And they bite. But speaking of, you know what would be normal? Talking about what happened last night."

"What part of it?" she asked in a voice that was _supposed _to be casual and disinterested. It came out as a prepubescent squeak. Awesome.

Damon tapped his lips with his index finger. "The kissing part."

"Yeah, about that. So obviously you saw what was going on during all that, but could you feel it? Like I could?" Elena didn't know if it was better or worse if he'd been able to feel his arms around her waist as he twirled her in the summer sun, been able to feel his lips on her breast, or if they'd just been shadows to him.

But Damon shook his head. "Nope. Strictly a visual medium for me. Doesn't seem fair. But you're stalling."

He was right. Dammit, what did he want her to say? That she'd just wanted to see what it felt like to kiss him when he wasn't dying? That the way he'd made her feel, even if it was all in her mind, was unlike anything she'd felt before? She couldn't say that. "What do you want to talk about?"

Damon's eyebrows raised incredulously. Then he just sank against the couch with a sigh. "You're right, nothing to talk about. Obviously. Nice tits, though," he sneered.

"And you wonder why I can't take you seriously when you say stuff like that? God, Damon. Don't make it gross." Was that what he was going to do? Decide that she had been repulsed by the whole affair and do his best to drive her away to protect himself? Was he so afraid to find out the truth about what she'd felt? Whatever the hell the truth _was_.

"No, I wonder why you can't be honest with yourself," he said. Elena winced. To be fair, she was trying to be honest. Really, really trying. But she didn't know the answers. Damon set his glass down with a heavy _thunk_. "But you know what? Whatever. We aren't here for therapy. Let's get on with it," he said grimly.

Her heart sank. "Damon-"

"No. We're done with that. We're moving on," he said, eyes flashing dangerously. Elena didn't press. "Considering you saw through everything I threw at you last night and even managed to get into _my _head, we'll call that a success. A-plus effort. So now we're going back to what tripped you up so much last time."

What tripped her up last time? Oh no. Oh no. This was very bad. Pissed-off Damon was going to mess with her emotions? "I don't think that's such a good idea."

Damon didn't even dignify her objection with a response. The compulsion hit her like a ton of bricks. This was nothing like the subtle, slow burning build-up of the desire she'd felt. This was a palpable, raging hatred all directed at one person: Damon.

Elena had never understood the expression "seeing red" before, but now she did. This breathtaking anger started at the top of her head, washing her skull with pulsing heat and clouding her eyes before moving lower to make her heart beat with painful, furious thumps. And it was all because of him. Everything wrong in her life was because of Damon.

He'd blown into town with his smirk and his swagger and his murderous rampages and systematically destroyed what she had with Stefan. He'd forced her to look outside the safety of Stefan's arms and into a world of what might have been. He'd murdered her brother in cold blood, only to be saved by a ring he hadn't known existed. He'd forced blood down her throat, forced John's sacrifice to save her. It was all his fault Stefan had given himself over to the blood to save his wasteful, pathetic life. Every hurt, every pain in the last year could be laid directly at the feet of Damon Salvatore. And she _hated _him.

Twisting her hands into cruel claws, she threw herself at him with a scream that burbled from the center of her belly. Fingernails scored bloody tracks on his face, the blood sudden and startling against his pale skin. They disappeared in seconds, leaving only scarlet trails behind. He didn't resist. He took on the pain without complaint. And that stopped her in her tracks.

Damon had caused a world of hurt, she couldn't deny that. But he'd been there to dry every tear. He'd taken responsibility for what he'd done, and in his own way, he'd atoned. This wasn't her. As much as he infuriated her, terrified her, fascinated her, attracted and repelled her, Elena knew that she could never hate Damon. And the rage disappeared, leaving something wholly new in its place. Sprawled there in Damon's lap, staring at that bloodied face, she stood at the crossroads.

She kissed him. It wasn't a kiss that made the world spin; there were no fireworks or shooting stars. This wasn't about sex, this was about that deep, wide ocean she'd sensed last night, a bottomless wellspring of something she couldn't even name. But it was real and it was right and it was exactly what she needed.

When the kiss came to an end, they stared at each other, both stunned into silence. Damon cupped her cheek in his hand. Hope was dawning in his eyes. "You did it."

She nodded. She'd done it. What happened next, she didn't know. But she'd set her feet on the road.

* * *

><p><em>Any words of thanks I could give you guys would be inadequate to the task. Thank you so much for your support, your kind notes and reviews and alerts and sharing this on Tumblr and wherever else. It's completely crazy and wonderful. Writing this is a joy, and so is getting to talk to all of you. Thank you. Stick around.<em>


	8. Free

_Elena may have just started on her road, but we're at the end of ours. I hope you've all enjoyed this story, that it's helped you get through the long hiatus, but this was always intended to only show the beginning of a love story, not the end. I can't begin to thank all of you enough for just reading this story, let alone the reviews, alerts and messages you've sent me. Truly, thank you. Special thanks go out to WildYennifer and onerepublicgirl, who both helped shape this story with our conversations, listened to me whine, and were generally all-around awesome._

_If you've enjoyed this story, consider reading my ongoing story "Consumed," or adding me to author alerts. I have a few new ideas, and I'd love to share them with all of you. Thank you again. _

-_Allison, 3/14/2012._

* * *

><p>She'd kissed him. It had been new and strange but familiar and right and all she wanted to do was to grab him by the collar and kiss him again and again. But a kiss didn't change anything, didn't alter the impossibility of all this, the impossibility of <em>them<em>.

When she'd fallen in love with Stefan, she hadn't known what he truly was, that he was a vampire, a ripper, a mass murderer. She hadn't understood the stakes of falling in love with him, that vampires play for eternity and they play for keeps.

But with Damon, her eyes had been open every step of the way. She'd chosen to be his friend, even after she'd seen his vampiric side, his impulsive violence and his casual cruelty. The choice even to extend her hand in friendship hadn't been an easy one, but she'd done it because he'd shown her what lay behind the monster. But was that enough? Was that enough for love? She didn't know. It was hard to breathe. He was too close, his eyes too bright.

"You're bleeding. I should go get...something," Elena said, starting to pull away. But Damon wrapped an arm around her waist and refused to let her budge.

"No. Not a chance. You aren't running away this time," he said. He pressed her bloodied fingertips to his lips, kissing each finger in turn, tasting himself.

"Oh, Damon, _gross_. There's blood everywhere," she said desperately. She just needed to get away for a minute, just needed to clear her head. So much was happening so fast, and with him looking at her like that, like a starving man before a feast, she just couldn't think.

"You didn't mind a minute ago." His hand tightened on hers. "I didn't compel you to do that. You know that, right? The opposite—I made you hate me, and you-"

"I know, Damon. I know what I did. I just don't know what it means. Maybe it doesn't mean anything." They both knew _that _was a lie. The kiss hadn't been a dying man's last wish or because she was confused or compelled. She'd kissed him because she wanted to feel his lips on hers and show him, just for a minute, that he was worthy of something besides hatred and scorn.

But that one kiss had opened a thousand roads, branching into a million possibilities, all of them thrilling and alien. Stefan had been willing to pretend, to play the part of a normal high school boy who was on the football team and went on double dates. But Damon would never play that game. Being with him ("dating" didn't even begin to touch this situation) would mean a final renunciation of any chance at a normal life. Turning would no longer be a choice—it would be an inevitability. Damon had proven time and time again that he'd choose to let her hate him before he chose to let her die. Too many choices, too many consequences were wrapped up in a single kiss.

"I'm scared," she said, ducking her head. She couldn't watch the hurt bloom in his eyes. She wanted him; she just didn't know if she wanted everything that came with him. One hundred and seventy years of baggage. How could she tell her friends? How could she tell Caroline, the toy he'd broken and flung aside? How could she tell Bonnie, who he'd wronged time and again? God, how could she tell _Stefan?_

"I'm scared shitless." That startled her enough to look back up at him, to meet his wry gaze. "Funny thing is, I don't know if I'm more afraid you'll run or you'll stay."

He was afraid she'd stay? That hurt, for reasons she couldn't define. She'd been so sure of his love, not just because she'd seen it in his every look and action day after day for the past three months while they'd weathered the Stefan storm together, but because she'd _lived _it. But maybe he didn't know what he wanted, either. To choose her would mean to fall for his brother's girl. Again. And it wasn't like she fit into his world, either. She'd lived a tenth of his years, and would probably die young, another tragic doppelganger."You...you want me to leave?" she asked uncertainly.

"No, you idiot." He released his hold on her waist, his hands fluttering at the sides of her face, fussing in her hair, flitting here and there as he spoke. "But I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be the kind of man you deserve." A crooked smile tugged at his lips. "Katherine was a great teacher when it came to manipulation and murder, but my education with her left out all the parts about how to just _be _with someone."

"That's so sad," Elena blurted. She flushed, but it was true. Damon's only real relationship, not some sick charade based on sex and blood and lies, had been with a true monster who'd used him, deceived him, let him die for her. And then she'd left him and never once looked back.

But Damon shrugged. "Just is. I've always been so focused on getting the girl that I never stopped to think about what I'd do if I caught her." His hands came to rest where they had a dozen times before, framing her face, fingers buried in her hair. "Tell me what to do, Elena. Do you want to go? If that's what you want, go." His eyes searched her face. "I can even take it away, if that's what you want. I can make it so it never happened, bury it so deeply you'll never find that memory again. We can go on like we did before," he said.

Elena knew how much it cost him to make that offer. For a moment, she was tempted. If the memory of what she'd felt and what she'd done was gone, she wouldn't have to decide. Not today, maybe not ever. It would be easy to go back to their truce, their teasing friendship. It would be easy to go back to chasing after Stefan, pretending she could ever really love him again. Easy.

Elena put one foot on the ground. Then the other. She rose from Damon's lap, his fingers trailing away through her hair. For once, her mind was numb, quiet, blank. Elena turned and walked away, the sound of her sneakers deafening. Damon was motionless behind her.

Her feet drew her to the bathroom. Warm water trickled over her hands, running pink and then clear as the blood rained from her fingers. She wet a washcloth. Rung it out.

Damon was still frozen when she returned. Hadn't moved a muscle. Elena sat beside him and took his face in her hand. With trembling fingers, she wiped the parallel lines of blood from his cheeks, the droplets from his chin. "Elena," he said.

More splatters on his forehead, a single drop that had coursed its way down his neck. They all disappeared under her gentle, insistent touch. Damon seized her wrist. "_Elena_," he begged.

Elena pulled her arm free. Folded the washcloth. Set it aside. Looked at him. For an instant, she was certain he was compelling her again, so forceful and desperate was his gaze, but no. This wasn't compulsion. This was love. "You caught her, Damon." She took his hand in hers, laced her fingers through his. It was one of the most frightening things she'd ever done. "You caught me."

When Elena saw the smile light up his face, she was certain she'd made the right decision. She knew she'd do anything to see that look again. "Now what are you going to do with me?" she asked.

Elena didn't even realize they'd moved until she felt the paneling digging into her back as Damon pressed her against the wall with the full, hard length of his body. This kiss? Yeah, this kiss had everything to do with sex. It was the kind of kiss that curled her toes, made her moan against his mouth. And that only encouraged him, only made his tongue press more insistently against hers, only made his lips move with more purpose and wanting.

Hands trembled as she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. He broke his hands from her hair, moving to help, to rip the flimsy thing from his back so more of their skin could touch, but she insisted on doing it her way, in her own time. He pulled back from the kiss, watching as her clumsy fingers managed first one button, then another. Inch by inch she revealed him, letting her fingernails graze across his nipple, then his ribs, then his hip just above those low-slung jeans. Damon made some sound without a name, a growl and a moan and a laugh all at once. "Even after all this, you still have to be in control. Still have to hold all the cards," he said.

"What are you talking about? Why are you _talking_?" she asked as she shucked his shirt off, letting the fabric fall to the floor. Damon bent his head, his tongue sweeping across her lower lip before he caught the pout between his teeth, tugging just hard enough for her to cry out.

"Because I want you to let go. Just this once. Trust me." His hands began to sneak up under her shirt, where the swell of her hip met the curve of her waist, then the side of her breast, and then her shirt was gone and she wasn't sure where it went but he had her earlobe in his mouth, his tongue dancing along the little silver stud in her ear, and she didn't care.

"I'll try," she said softly. In for a penny, in for a pound. If she was going to be with Damon, if she was going to trust her heart to him, then she could trust her body to him, too. He smiled again and reclaimed her mouth, and then her bra was gone, but it didn't matter because his hands immediately made up for its absence. Every inch got its own share of attention as hands gripped the soft flesh, thumbs pressed against painfully hard nipples as he continued to kiss her relentlessly.

"Good enough for me," he murmured against her mouth, and she laughed.

His hands moved lower, taking his time as he unbuttoned the fly of her jeans, lips moving lower, barely skimming her neck, her collar, that solid plate of bone between her breasts. He began to tug her pants down, and she pressed against his hand, wanting to feel him. She'd imagined what it would be like when he touched her—would reality be the same?

But he pressed a hand against her belly, pinning her against the wall. "Ah, ah, ah. I'm not doing this like a fumbling teenager with your pants around your ankles. Have a little class, Elena," he smirked. With the same torturous slowness as before, he drew her jeans down, hands caressing her thighs, her calves, her ankles before he helped her step out of them. Kneeling before her, he considered her pretty pale blue underwear with a wolfish smile. He stroked her through the damp fabric, gentle, and then yanked the silken scrap away, the fabric biting into her flesh for a split-second before it was gone. She stood utterly bare before him. Again, she was terrified.

But then she caught his eyes and the fear disappeared. This was the man who wanted all of her—not just her body, not just because she looked like a woman he'd once loved, but because _she_ was the woman he loved. He wanted her flaws and her weaknesses and her failings. He wanted every bit of her. She gave a tiny nod.

He rose, nudging her legs apart with his knee. Their lips met again just as he slipped the tip of a single finger inside her, teasing through the outermost folds before plunging deep inside her. Her legs quaked as he moved in and out, finger and tongue moving in a complex percussive beat. Another finger joined and she felt her body tighten in anticipation, coiled and powerful as it waited for what it knew was coming. She came up for air, gasping. "Please." Not alone. She wanted to do this together.

She didn't have to ask him twice. She heard tearing fabric and then felt him pressing against her, hard and ready, and she clasped her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist. He positioned himself at her entrance and bent his head to her neck. Twin pinpricks rested against the pulsing vein, an implicit question.

Scared. So scared. She clutched one hand to the nape of his neck and pressed his head against her. "Do it."

Everything happened at once. He rammed his length home at the same time his fangs punctured the skin. A searing stab of pain gave way to a nameless, wordless pleasure that throbbed and ached and hurt. She never wanted it to end. His hips bucked against hers as he sucked and nipped and licked at her neck, the speed increasing until she felt herself tightening, trembling, readying. "Damon," she moaned, and that was enough. That was enough to send him careening over the edge, head thrown back, transfixed in pleasure. She had just enough time to appreciate the moment before she followed him down, calling his name again as the world narrowed to what this man made her feel, body and soul.

When her vision cleared and her brain decided to form coherent thoughts again, she saw him watching her, eyes wide and solemn. "I _love _you," he said.

Her blood was on his lips, smeared across his cheek. A hint of scarlet still colored the whites of his eyes, and delicate veins traced his cheek bones. He was beautiful; he was terrible and powerful and cruel. But it was still Damon. And if she could ever hope to love him even half so well as he loved her, she was going to have to accept this part of him, too.

She tried to speak the words, but they still wouldn't form in her mouth. So she kissed him, tasted copper, tasted herself, felt fangs. "You too," she said.

He smiled. It was enough.

* * *

><p>Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. Very little changed; everything changed. Every day without fail, Elena presented herself for her lesson. They got stronger together, Damon finding new ways to delve into her mind, plant more seeds of doubt and persuasion and coercion, and Elena finding new ways to thwart him at every turn.<p>

Some days, Damon's face melted into Klaus' and Elena was forced to fight for her life. On others, she was thrown into memories of long bridges and dark waters and burbling screams and even when she'd clawed her way back to the real world, the tears remained. Her mind was clouded with rage and lust and love and terror and every other emotion she'd ever felt. Her body forced her to dance or to attack or to fuck without control. But one by one, she broke them all, and at the end of every nightmarish night, Damon held her in his arms and told her he loved her.

Day by day, they found a way to be together. It wasn't easy. They said horrible things to each other; they cursed and railed and screamed and threw glasses into the fire and stomped out in snits. They weren't always happy together, but no matter how angry or hurt they were, they always loved each other and tried a little harder every day to find how they fit together.

But today was different. Today was Elena's final exam. They'd done it all, Damon said. She could shrug off anything he threw at her without so much as a twitch of an eye. If she could pass one final test, she could master anything.

The boarding house was full of sunlight when she tromped in and threw her book bag down, but Elena wasn't fooled. Whatever was about to happen was going to be _bad. _Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw Damon pacing the floors, no glass of bourbon in sight. Shit.

She approached him, leaning up for their customary kiss. He hesitated, but kissed her slowly, not a casual brush of lips, but something lingering and gentle. Oh, she was so fucked. "Can we just get it over with? Please?" she asked. "The not knowing is the worst part."

He smiled sadly and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "Yeah. Let's do it. But Elena?" His eyes searched her face, as if memorizing every detail. "Don't fuck this one up, okay?"

The feel of his compulsion settling over her was like an old friend now, though it still took her breath away with its strength and ferocity. She stood frozen in the blue, awaiting his order. "Tell me how you fight compulsion," he demanded.

Elena blinked in confusion. "Knowing who I am and what I want," she answered of her own volition, shrugging off the drag of compulsion with ease. "But what does that-"

The force of his will battered against her, and his eyes loomed large before her, until nothing else existed but him. "Forget, Elena. Forget yourself. Forget who you are," he whispered.

Surprise hit her like lightning. They'd never done this, never practiced it, not after she'd drug the memory of his love from his own mind. And now he was taking everything, memories flashing before her eyes before they disappeared. She tried to grab onto them, to save them, but each one vanished.

Two girls, one golden and one dark, playing on the lawn of a house. Gone. A smiling toddler with a fistful of crayons and a shy smile. Gone. A man and a woman, laughing and swimming as the sun dipped below the horizon. First day of school. Cheerleading. An endless scream that ended in a splash. A boy with green eyes. Floating feathers. Blood in her mouth, coating her tongue, dripping down her throat. Fire. A woman falling to the ground, eyes fixed and staring. A man with blue eyes, his face sheened with sweat, his lips soft and cool. Gone, gone, gone. The memories came one after another and disappeared into some vast black hole. She couldn't even remember what she was mourning.

Everything was being stripped from her, leaving her hollow and empty. She couldn't let them go, couldn't let _herself _go. Blindly, she plucked one memory from the swirling maelstrom of images and sensations and smells and sounds and clutched onto it for dear life. It was a man, dark hair and clear eyes. "It's because I love you that I can't be selfish with you," he said. She felt his breath cool against her skin, smelled bourbon and leather and blood. "God, I wish you didn't have to forget this. But you do." She felt his lips against her forehead, and knew that this man loved her. Whoever that man was, she couldn't forget him.

_My name is Elena Gilbert. I am the doppelganger. My parents were Grayson and Miranda. And Isobel and John. And Jenna and Alaric. My brother is Jeremy, my best friends are Bonnie and Caroline. I love Damon. And I can't forget any of them._

Memories poured back in, filling her to the very brim with every hurt and every joy she'd ever known until she was certain she would burst wide open, unable to contain them all. But somehow they all fit back together, and then she was herself again, staring at this man, this asshole who'd tried to take away her very self. The same asshole who'd helped her find herself, the very asshole who brought her back. Those blue eyes no longer had any power over her; couldn't force her to see or to feel or to do anything. They were just eyes, and he was just a man. And she loved him.

Elena kissed Damon, and she was free.


End file.
